Dr Greg Bahnsen - Philosophy of Christianity: Critique of Natural Theology (Part 8)

Okay. I'm coming today to a summary evaluation of the theistic proofs. And I'm going to do this summary in about five steps. First of all, I'd like to point out natural theology's false assumption. In studying the theistic proofs, we have been studying certain instances of natural theology. The ontological proof, the cosmological proof, and the teleological proof. And apart from the reformulation or restructuring or reconstitution of the articles or arguments at the end of each discussion, we have been looking at them in their form, in their traditional form, as instances of natural theological argumentation. And so my first thrust of evaluation is going to be an evaluation of natural theology itself. Very briefly, natural theology, I remind you, is the outlook that says that by correct use of reason and evidence, the unregenerate man can, without assistance, arrive at elementary religious truths. By a correct use of reason and evidence, the unregenerate man can, without assistance, arrive at elementary religious truths. Put it another way, natural theology asserts that autonomously a man may come to a proper interpretation of God's revelation in nature and history. Autonomously, a man may come to a proper interpretation of God's revelation in nature and history. Of course, this has as its concomitant assertion or premise that the mind of the natural man has sufficient rational powers to discover God on his own. That the mind of the natural man has sufficient rational powers to discover God on his own. Okay, that's basically what natural theology comes down to. And I have five, five problems with that point of view. Five false assumptions that I'd like to draw to your attention very quickly. First of all, natural theology holds that some partial elements of the truth about theism can be reached at the end of an autonomous reasoning process. Certain partial elements of truth can be arrived at the end and regained at the end of a reasoning process. By contrast, it seems to me that Scripture says that the full truth about God is objectively visible from the very start, rather than partial elements of truth being gained at the end of a reasoning process. Romans 1 says that the full truth of God is objectively visible from the very start, and therefore the unbeliever has not done justice to the objective true revelation of God if his reaction is not God fearing from the very outset, not simply partial submission to the truth of God at the end of a process of reasoning, but full submission to God's objective truth at the beginning of all chains of reasoning. Secondly, natural theology thinks that the unbeliever can be fair and open minded and use right reason and will affirm a portion of religious truth upon the strength of the evidence. Natural theology sees the unbeliever as open minded and using right reason. Another assumption that I think we would want to biblically challenge as Protestants. For the Scripture views the unbeliever rather as prejudiced about God, having a prejudgment against the God of the Bible, not being open minded, but rather close minded, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, deceiving and being deceived and being desperately wicked, an enemy in his mind who cannot submit to God, and thus one who has a vain blinded process of reasoning. Lest you think I've gotten a little excessive and become abusive against our unbelieving friends, every one of those phrases is a biblical phrase applied to the unbeliever. And it's something we need to take to heart when we think about reasoning with him. He is prejudiced against God in that he suppresses the truth. He is deceived and deceiving. He's desperately wicked, an enemy in his mind who cannot submit to God and has vain blinded reasoning. So at the end of the reasoning process, if there is not a gracious and saving repentance, you find criminal distortion of the truth and culpable ignorance on the part of the unbeliever. Apart from the grace of God. What we have is not natural theology. We have natural idolatry. The natural impetus of all men's hearts and minds is idolatry. That's what's natural to men only. Grace takes the evidence and makes it plain to the eyes of a blinded, hard hearted sinner. And so the second assumption I challenge is the open minded use of right reason by the unbeliever. Thirdly, natural theology portrays man as able to interpret natural revelation correctly, aside from special revelation. Natural theology portrays man as able to interpret natural revelation correctly apart from special revelation. Natural revelation apart from special revelation, the evidence of nature apart from the truth of the Scripture. However, Scripture teaches that special revelation is the divinely ordained means of for correcting the sinner's outlook on the world. And indeed the Scripture gives us the only presupposition that can account for the created reality correctly. Nature must be read, to put it another way, through the spectacles of Scripture, to do justice to the truth, the unbeliever must submit to the whole counsel of God. And that is found in the Bible, the Old and New Testament. And with that presupposition, one can then look at nature and correctly interpret it. But the idea that one can now look at natural revelation and properly Interpret it without the aid of special revelation is a false assumption. Fourthly, Scripture teaches us the necessity of the Holy Spirit's work if blinded eyes are going to see the truth. And when the Holy Spirit works, I maintain that he makes us submit to the whole truth of God. That isn't to say that we are perfect in that submission, but the project, the scope of the submission is the whole truth of God and not just bits and pieces of elementary truths. That is, we submit to God as Creator and Judge and Redeemer. And consequently, when the Holy Spirit opens blinded eyes, he brings us full salvation. There is no. Let me put it another way. There is no halfway house in the submission to God's truth. All of life is tied up in the conversion of the sinner to the truth of the gospel. Natural theology teaches that you have a certain fundamental of truths that are founded on reason. And then on top of that, we can build a house of faith so that we can prove that there is a God by reason, but that it's the triune God. We must take on faith from the Scriptures. And I want to maintain that when the Holy Spirit opens blinded eyes, there isn't this dichotomy between what you can prove by reason and faith. The Holy Spirit teaches us to submit to the whole thing. There are no halfway houses to the truth of the Gospel. The Holy Spirit opens the blinded eyes of the sinner to the whole truth. Fifthly, we can see this is really by way of summary, I guess, of the first four items that I've been giving you. We can see that natural theology has not correctly assessed two major considerations. Natural theology does not correctly assess the proper use of reason. And secondly, it does not correctly assess the nature of unregenerate reason. Okay. The proper use of reason is not correctly assessed and the unregenerate nature of reason is not correctly assessed. Just a word about each one of those items. Natural theology doesn't correctly assess the proper use of reason. That is, it speaks of right reason. But natural theology doesn't see the nature, the range and the purpose of reason in terms of the whole counsel of God. And secondly, it does not see the autonomous rebellious nature of unregenerate reason. Any questions about this? Anybody? The rain has just subdued today.

Okay, then I'm going to go on.

I've got plenty of material to cover here. I'm not going to wait too long.

Ah, okay.

Okay. Scripture teaches the necessity of the Holy Spirit's work if blinded eyes, who are going to see the truth and when the Holy Spirit works He makes us submit to the whole truth of God, bringing us full salvation so that there is no halfway house in the submission to God's truth. There isn't this faith and then reason, I mean, reason and then faith built on top of it. The second point I want to make today is now, this was just in terms of general theological evaluation of what we are trying to do in the theistic proofs. Secondly, I want to point out that a proof of God's existence is just too easy and yet too impossible to give. Something very strange about trying to prove God's existence. The very idea of proving God's existence, I think, is in the first place, just too easy to do. In the second, life's too hard, too difficult, too impossible to do. That may seem a little paradoxical. And so let me explain. First of all, I think proving God's existence is in one sense really just too easy. I'm going to give you now a proof for God's existence. It's absolutely sound, absolutely valid. It cannot be defeated. Our first premise is that nothing exists or God exists. I want to remind you, for those who have not had formal logic, that the or here in symbolic logic is construed in the weak sense or does not mean only one of these is true. It means at least one of these is true. So when I say or A or B, it doesn't mean either A or B. It could be A and B as well, or simply means at least one of the conjuncts here, disjuncts, excuse me, is going to be true at least one. That is, if this is a true premise at all. If both of them should turn out to be false, then it's a false premise. Okay, so nothing exists or God exists. My second premise is that something exists. I'm going to draw the conclusion that therefore God exists. All right? You can put your pencils away and fold up your notes and go home, because now we've proven God's existence. See how easy it is? You cannot defeat that argument. Let's look at it. Is this a sound argument? Well, certainly a valid argument. Let's look at the form of the argument. Testing for validity is always testing with respect to form. We have P or Q, not P, therefore Q. And that, by the way, is a valid form of argument. It's called disjunctive syllogism. It's one of the standard throughout the history of logic forms of argumentation using syllogism P or Q, not P, therefore Q. If it's true that one of these at least one of these is true and one of them is shown to be false. Consequently, the other one must be true. All right, let's look and see. Now, do we accept this? Let me begin with the minor premise something exists. Anybody have any doubt about that? Does anybody who exists have any doubt about that? Okay, so so far, so good, right? Is the first premise true? I'm asking you if the first premise is true. Sure, that's what I'm saying. So then you're saying God exists. The first premise is true as long as one of the disjuncts is true. Is the first premise true? Well, it's false if it's false if God does not exist. And it's true if God does exist. So one can reject premise number one only if atheism has been proven. But since I don't know any good proofs of atheism, we have no difficulty accepting that one is true. So if one is true, what we have here is a valid argument with true premises.

Okay?

Everything okay, now we've proven God's existence. I'm not saying something is the same as God. I'm just saying that if something exists that can't be true, that nothing exists. In other words, if this premise here cancels this disjunct right there, then you have to be left with this one. Or can we say number two doesn't have to prove it, it only has to cancel the first disjunct in premise 1. Because if premise 1 is true, consequently God must exist because the second premise shows that the first gist junk of premise 1 can't be true. Truly circular argument. Because in saying that the number one is correct or is a true premise, then you are saying, and you are saying that nothing exists or that something does exist, then you are implying by saying this true premise that God in fact does exist. In other words, you've got to know God exists before you'll accept premise number one. So what? How's that? A defect in the argument itself may be a defect in us, or maybe a defect in those who don't accept it. But the argument is a good argument. You see. Let me. I'm going to get you off the wire here now and press on for a minute. Somebody's going to say number one's got to be proven to us first. Nobody has proved number one to be true. The answer to that is so what? Nobody's proved number two to be true either, and nobody complained then. I mean, I didn't hear anybody griping that we accepted the second premise. And so obviously we argue sometimes without proving every one of our premises, don't we? Well, the objector is going to go on and he's going to say, but he doesn't know that number one is true, although he does know that number two is true. The atheistic objector says, I don't know number one is true. I do know number two is true. That's why I didn't complain about number two. And again, the answer is we're being very strict now in terms of argumentation. The answer is still so what? So you don't know number one is true. Does that mean it's not true? Does your not knowing something disprove it? No, that means that this argument is ineffective for you. Please put that in your notes. That means this argument is ineffective for somebody who doesn't accept the existence of God. But of course, that is a defect in my argument. Only if this argument is calculated to convince objectors. So even looking for an argument for God's existence, I gave you one. But it turns out what you wanted is not just an argument. That is premises that have a valid form and true content. You want an argument that's going to convince people. Well, now can we give you an argument that's going to convince people? Well, let's talk about that for a minute. I don't think anybody can construct an infinite series of arguments for each premise in his argumentation. Let's say that we have an argument up here, And in order for it to be convincing, we have to have an infinite series of arguments for each premise offered here we have P or Q dot P, therefore Q. Now, if this is going to be a convincing argument is are you laying this condition on me that I've got to prove number one and prove number two by another argument? Let's say that I use only argument A to prove one, and I use argument B to prove two. But of course, you may not accept A or B. Right? So now I've got to use C to prove A and I've got to use D to prove B and I.

Can keep going on and on and.

On and on and on. Is that what we're saying? That a convincing argument is one that has an infinite series of proofs behind it? That'd be a little unrealistic now, wouldn't it? We wouldn't ever go out and have a Coke or see a baseball game or see our children or do anything. If we had to do that, we couldn't prove anything convincingly. So I don't think there's any special defect in the argument that I gave you just because I haven't given you an infinite series of backup arguments for each premise. We can demand, however, now say I'm doing this dialectically. We keep going back and forth, somebody said, but we can demand, can't we, that a proof in some particular case. We can demand a proof in some particular case if some termination rule for such demands is recognized by all the participants through the discussion. What if all of us get together and we agree on a termination rule? That is, it won't be an infinite series of arguments. We'll all agree that something is proven once you've reached a certain point. That's called a termination rule in argumentation. That is the series of challenges and replies for each premise will end when the soundness of a proof is known to all the participants. Let's say we get this room filled up with Christians and non Christians and all sorts of people. Our termination rule is that when everybody that's party to this challenge and reply process for the premises, when everybody knows the soundness of the proof, then the proof has terminated. That is, it doesn't have to be an infinite series, it simply has to be a series that goes as far as showing everybody in the room. When everybody in the room knows that the proof is sound, when all the participants of the discussion know that the proof is sound, then we terminate. That sounds reasonable enough, fair enough. What's the problem with it? Well, that makes the whole idea of proof relative, doesn't it? Relative to the people that are in the room. You know, you get a bunch of four year old children in this room and the proof may terminate very soon and you get a bunch of people who are PhD candidates in philosophy and I dare say you won't prove anything ever. So you see, this looks like a good termination rule, but we have to remember that it makes the termination relative to the people who are in the room relative to the set of persons who are involved in the discussion. So that a fixed termination point hasn't really been determined, has it? We've set up formally a way of terminating a discussion, but we don't know where any discussion is necessarily going to end. There isn't any necessary end. It's all relative. For you see, knowledge and ingenuity are going to vary from group to group. And thus being able to reach the termination in an argument is not necessarily a virtue. If I take and I have taken and it's no great virtue, college freshmen and prove to them some absurd thesis and you finally wear everybody down. They don't want to argue anymore. That's not necessarily a virtue in your argument. On the other hand, not being able to prove something to a room full of people who are just hard nosed, hard hearted and nasty is not necessarily a defect in your argument either. And this is an aside, you can put it in your notes if you want, but it's just a word of counsel to you as Christian brothers in apologetics. One of the biggest problems I find in young apologists is they do not get it into their head that the virtue of their argument has nothing to do with the emotional response of their opponent. And so necessarily they cast about for more and more and more arguments trying to break the will of an opponent, when in fact they may have gotten to the point where it's simply a matter of will with the opponent. And you know what? A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. And if you'll remember that, maybe the Lord will graciously take away from you that vicious desire to dominate your opponent intellectually. And once you've gotten rid of that, I think you become a far more effective evangelist and apologist. Learn that when you've got a good argument, stick to your guns and stop casting about for new ones and all that. The defects. It is not a defect in your argument if not everybody in the room is convinced, necessarily, nor is it a virtue if everybody is. Arguments are weighed on independent grounds, then the success with the people that are hearing them, it seems unprofitable. Moreover, I think to speak of an argument proving its conclusion to someone who knows the truth of its premises from his own a priori knowledge of the truth of the conclusion. That is, I had an argument up there that said nothing exists or God exists. Secondly, something does exist, therefore God exists. Now, it turns out that your willingness to accept premise one is really conditioned upon your a priori willingness to accept the conclusion. You see, if you know the truth of the conclusion, you'll accept that premise. And then of course, the argument is not only a good argument, but it's a convincing argument. But such an argument would not enable you to know anything new, would it? It wouldn't provide new grounds for what you already knew. It would not extend your knowledge. It would not be, if you will, a cognitive pioneering adventure for you to go through this argument because you already knew the truth of it as you were going through it, because you knew the conclusion, and you had to know the conclusion before you could accept the premise. And so let's put a new condition on theistic argumentation, we may say that an argument is convincing if one it is cogent for a particular person. An argument is convincing if 1 it is cogent for that person, and 2 if that person knows that its premises are true without inferring that truth from the conclusion. Now that would be a convincing proof. If I could give you a proof that is cogent to you and a proof wherein you can accept the truth of the premises without inferring the truth of the premises from the conclusion. That is, if I can get you to accept the premises totally apart from the conclusion and then show the conclusion follows, that would be a cogent proof. That would be a convincing proof. Excuse me, if it's a cogent argument, that is to say valid as to form true as to premises, and if you know the truth of the premises apart from knowing the truth of the conclusion, then we've got a convincing argument. Does everybody follow me? A convincing argument is one cogent for a person and two that person knows that its premises are true without having to infer any of them from the conclusion of the argument. That would be a premise in that it represents a genuine cognitive advance. It would be a knowledge gaining project to go through the premises and arrive at the conclusion. Of course, proof in this sense must admittedly be person relative and person variable. Proof is relative to the person who sees its cogency and relative to what the person does or does not know what he is able and not able to infer from things. Convincing proof then becomes person relative. I've worked this through far enough that now I can start drawing a few morals to this story. Remember, I showed you how easy it is to prove God's existence, and yet how impossible I'm going to be showing it is to give a convincing proof of God's existence. Well, it goes like this. The moral an argument can help us to advance our knowledge only if we already know something. It turns out arguments won't help people who don't know anything at all. Right? Arguments can't go on and on and on. So you have to at least know something to begin arguing. Nobody can gain all of his knowledge by proofs. Nobody knows everything that he knows on the basis of a proof. Well, somebody could suggest that we could therefore know God even though we can't prove God. And nobody can argue with you there because nobody knows everything he knows on the basis of proofs. So even if we couldn't prove God's existence, there wouldn't be a defect in the knowledge of God. And I'm just making a philosophical observation. Everybody's in the same boat logically at this point. Two, I don't think it's likely at all that there is some argument that will prove God's existence to everyone. I just don't think it's likely that there is some one argument that will prove to be convincing to everyone. And the reason for that is that I think it's highly unlikely that there is a set of propositions that is known by everyone, a set of propositions that is known by everyone that entails God's existence. Notice that on our conception of convincing proof, you've got to have a certain knowledge. There must be certain premises that people know. Now, if there's going to be one set argument that proves God's existence for everybody, then there must be a set of known premises which is known to everyone. Moreover, there must be a set of premises known to everyone which implies God's existence. But apart from the knowledge of God and his attributes, I don't know of any premises that are known to everyone. You say, well, everybody knows that every cause, every effect has a cause. Well, try doing a survey and see if everyone knows that. You're going to find a lot of people who deny it. And you say, but it's true by definition. Well, they have to be informed of that. And until you educate people, a lot of them just won't accept that a lot of people won't even understand what you're talking about. So what set of premises is it that everyone knows and moreover will imply the existence of God? I don't think there. I really doubt that there are such premises that there is such a set. And if there isn't such a set, then there isn't any one argument that's going to work with every individual who's ever lived. That means that that's the convention. That's a linguistic convention in the English language that we say an effect is that which is caused and a cause is that which gives an effect. It's like bachelorism. That just makes it true by definition, by discovery. That's right. Nobody goes out to discover that bachelors are unmarried males. Okay? Unless you mean by that sending a child to the dictionary to discover it because he's read it for the first time. But there's nothing that you can find out in the world that will prove that bachelors are unmarried males. That's just the way we use our. Well, I suppose you could have a dictionary that has existence or God defined in such a way that he exists. Well, we do send people because they may lack a knowledge of the English language, but they don't lack a knowledge of bachelors. You don't learn anything new about bachelors by going to the dictionary. You learn how we describe them in the English language as unmarried males. But you know, if your child knows the bachelor next door, your child, I mean, if your child knows the bachelor qua bachelor, that is he has no wife, going to the dictionary will not help your child learn anything further, although it may help the child learn how to organize his use of the English language. Therefore, it's true by definition, it doesn't tell you anything new about the world. That's all I'm saying. Okay, I was at the point of saying there's no one argument that will prove God's existence to everyone, because it's highly unlikely that there's a set of propositions known by everyone that entails the existence of God. Now please note this in your notes. It is just that this ridiculously hard task that many unbelieving philosophers are demanding of us. They're demanding that there be one argument, one set argument that will be convincing to everyone. I don't say all philosophers make that demand, but a lot of them do. And many popular pundits who are atheists will do the same. But I don't believe the ignorance of others, in particular the ignorance of unbelievers, should be a barrier to our own intellectual advance. That is, the fact that not everyone knows the premises necessary to prove God's existence as we would as believers, is not necessarily a defect in our argument. Third, third, moral to the story here, I think likewise, it's very unlikely that there is some conclusion that can be proved to everyone by some argument or another. My point a minute ago is there's no one argument that will work for everybody. My point now is that there's no one conclusion that can be proven for everybody, no matter how many arguments you try. The first point had to do with just one singular argument proving God's existence. Now I'm saying I don't think God's existence can be proved by any series of arguments to everyone. The Bible assures us there are just some people who will not come to faith. And therefore the epistemological question about proofs for God's existence is in the long run dependent upon the metaphysical question, question about the existence of God itself. Whether people will accept a proof in the long run is going to depend upon the basic worldview within which they are thinking. I think it's a mistake to think that we can answer the epistemological question about proving God's existence prior to answering the metaphysical question about whether he in fact exists. So whether there can be a proof of God's existence will depend on on whether or not God does in fact exist. And if he does, then there can be a convincing proof. And if he does not, then there can't. So where have we gotten? I've seen, first of all the false assumptions in natural theology, and secondly, I've tried to point out to you the way in which proving God's existence is on the one hand too easy, and on the other hand far too impossible. And if we don't come to a realistic evaluation of what we're up against here, I think we're going to constantly be misled too easy to prove God's existence. I can give you a proof. I did it. On the other hand, it's really impossible to give you a proof that's going to be convincing to every single individual. But that isn't a defect in the proof, and it certainly is not a defect in the truth of the conclusion that God exists. What is it a defect in? Is it a defect in the hearer? That's what the Bible tells us, that our hearers are defective. They are morally and intellectually defective because they are fleeing the presence of God. And they will constantly try to build a roof over their heads to keep out the knowledge of God and the revelation of God. And there's no proof that you will be able to construe that will break that moral intolerance and that moral hostility. Consequently, you can't prove convincingly God's existence to everyone, but you can prove it. If what you mean is just give you a valid argument that has true premises and a conclusion that's true, you can do it. Thirdly, I want to point out that historically the proofs have not proven a biblical conception of God. Historically, the traditional theistic proofs have not given us a biblical conception of God. And I think we've probably commented upon this enough in the process of discussing the three various proofs that you already have to point down. The proofs simply have not proven a biblical conception of God. What they give us, on the one hand, may be an impersonal principle, like an impersonal definition, or an impersonal causal principle or something like that. Or they give us a finite God. They do not show us a transcendent God, do they? They show us that God may be just the biggest cause within a long chain of imminent causes or Perhaps the proofs give us a plurality of gods. Okay. The fact that everything has a cause may just show there's a lot of Gods causing things in this world. When all is said and done, these proofs have not given us an object of worship. The God of the philosophers. When all is said and done is not the sort of thing you feel like going home and praying to. I would like to go home now and pray to that than which none greater be conceived or the first cause. No, I dare say we go home and we pray to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray to the triune God, the one who is sovereign over all. And that's why we pray because we know that he has made us, he loves us, he takes care of us and he can control everything. And that is not the type of God that's proven by the arguments.

Would this sort of thing stem from.

The Greeks, what you were just saying a little bit louder.

Would this sort of thing stem from.

The Greeks, what you were just saying? Well, I think it stems from the Greeks and it stems from some Greek dominated Christian philosophers too. The problem is because we have. I'm going to be saying in a minute that there's methodological problems in the proofs, mainly the autonomy of one's heart and mind, the idea that I will assume my existence and everything that I know around me and then I'll try to bring God into the question. And I really think that when all is said and done, that's an irreligious attitude. That's an attitude that says I can take me and what I know for granted, but God, you're up for grabs. And that attitude leads to proving a God that's far less than the biblical God. Because you know very well you can't talk to the biblical God that way. He's far beyond saying that he will stand in the dock before the bar of human reason. God will put human reason in the dock and will judge it Himself. And consequently it's just the Lord. It's just the Lordly character of the Creator. It's just the fact that he is majestic in his sovereign determination of whatever comes to pass. It's just because he is transcendent and above us that we cannot try to prove him in the way that so many of the traditional groups do. Now I'm getting into my next point. Let me finish up this one here about the biblical conception not being followed. I think we need to go out, go beyond what I've said and say as well that concessive appeal, you will notice, is almost always made to probability when the arguments don't work. If you read the philosophical accounts that I have given you for this class, you notice the philosophers deal with these as arguments on their own two feet. Many Christians notice that the philosophers argue about these things. And so what they do is they make a concessive appeal to the arguments and say, well, they probably prove God's existence. And the worst form of this concessive appeal to the arguments is, well, I recognize that the ontological argument doesn't prove God's existence in itself, and the teleological doesn't prove it in itself, and the cosmological doesn't prove it in itself. But maybe if we hook all of them together, maybe they'll strengthen each other and prove God's existence. Very probably. And Anthony Flew, a rather hostile critic of Christianity, a philosopher of no mean reputation, has put, I think, the proper answer to that when he said, the fact that one bucket is leaky and another bucket is leaky and a third bucket is leaky does not give us any assurance that three leaky buckets will team up and make a perfect one. What happens when you put three leaky buckets together? You have three leaks. And so a leaky argument is not going to be a good argument just because you team it up with other leaky, leaky arguments. Somehow Christians think that we can get a little bit with this argument. Then you kind of add to it with this argument and then add to it with this argument, and finally we're going to get out there across the chasm from unbelief to belief. It ain't going to work logically. I guess you know that too, because the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And so if you get three weak links together, how strong a chain have you got? You got a Tripoli. Weak one is what you've got. And you see there's something wrong with this, something desperately wrong with this. When you look at Romans 1 and stop and say, what have we been doing for this last week? Romans 1 says first of all that what can be known of God is manifest within them because God has made it clear to them. We're not talking about some semi conception of God, some quasi conception of God, some limited notion of God. The living and true God is known to all men. Moreover, Paul says that God has made it known to them so that they are without excuse. Nobody can offer the slightest rationalization for not believing in God. Well, if the proofs don't even give us a Biblical conception of God and in the end have to be shunted down to the probability level at that. You better know very well that we're far from the biblical conception. I realize that what I'm telling you is not popular. I realize that if you want to go pick up the standard theological works, traditional philosophers and philosophical theologians, if you want to look at the popular apologists of the day, they are not going to give it to you straight like this. That's because apologetics has for the most part become an in house operation in the evangelical church today. We talk to each other and we convince each other that we can appeal to probability. But you know, you try working that in a philosophical arrangement where you don't presuppose Christian faith and you're going to find out that it just doesn't wash. Moreover, when you look at the Bible, you find out it just doesn't wash. You see, there's just something wrong, the very heart of things here in this natural theological approach. And that brings me fourthly then to what I think is the methodological error in the proofs. Methodological error of God's existence be directed. For whom was a polio vaccine invented? Tough question, eh? People who had polio, right? Who would you be constructing a theistic proof for? Allegedly for somebody who doesn't believe in God. Romans 1 tells us that there are no atheists. Man is characterized as a created being, as nontiscal.

Tant.

Romans 1:18 and following and knowing God, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Nantes tant knowing not a God, but knowing the God, the living and true God. Nantes Tantheon. If that's true, that there are no atheists in their heart of hearts, that all men know God, then it turns out that their refusal to say there is a God is a matter of suppression, not a matter of ignorance. That is to say, it is not an intellectual problem, it is a moral problem. That men deny the existence of God is a moral problem. It is a matter of self deception. Because they do know in their heart of hearts that there is the living and true God to whom they will give an account on the final day. And yet not wishing to govern their lives with that thought, and certainly feeling guilty before their Maker, they suppress the truth to make themselves feel better and not so guilty and free to do what they wish. And so they worship other kinds of gods. Gods made out of the created order. They suppress the truth about the living and true God. And I'm saying that's a moral problem, not an intellectual problem. Natural Theology proceeds on the mistaken assumption that man simply needs more information, that the world can be understood apart from the revelation of God, and that reason is operating fairly normally as it is natural. Theology proceeds on the mistaken assumption that man is willing to reason properly about God and he's all right as far as he goes. He only needs more information that the world can be properly understood apart from revelation. And that reason is all right is fairly normal in its operation today. I think that's the methodological problem in the proofs. The proofs, as they have been traditionally formulated, assume the autonomy of man's reasoning, that man can be the reference point in an argument. That you can take for granted this sure thing, that you exist, that you're clear to yourself, that you understand the world just fine. Now from all of that, let's see if we can get to God. That assumes autonomy, the autonomy of reason, that reason is a law to itself, that it's self sufficient, that it's all right as far as it goes. Secondly, it assumes that the facts of the world are brute facts, that they don't have to be put within an interpretive context to be understood at all. That everybody just knows a cow when they see a cow, that everybody just knows a tree when they see a tree. Everybody knows causation when you speak of causation, that these things can be understood apart from a world and life view that give them meaning. It assumes the abstract nature of logic, that logic is simply the imposition of mental categories on the flux of experience. Fourthly, it assumes that common ground can be had with an unbeliever without any sense of antithesis, that we and the unbeliever know the same thing in the same way, with the same heart, attitude and the same goals. And there's really no question about it that we can assume this much in granted between all men. And then from that we can move on to prove God's existence as though there were no fundamental and principal antithesis in the thinking and reasoning and standards of the unbeliever and the believer. And finally, natural theology assumes the open minded neutrality of unbelievers when the Bible teaches they are not open minded, they are not neutral. Moreover, the Bible tells us we ought not to be neutral because we ought never to surrender our full commitment of mind as well as body to Jesus Christ. I've gone through that rather quickly, I recognize. But that methodological error that I've been describing for you in some detail is what I think has given the lie to most of the theistic pro proofs if we approach the unbeliever with these assumptions about himself, about the world, and about God, about reason, then we're finally going to end up with the problems that we've been noting. And so my fifth point here is that instead of the traditional approach to the proofs, we must rather reconstruct them along presuppositional lines, that is, rather reconstruct the proofs along the lines of the philosophical orientation I gave you in the first week of this class. What we want to show in particular is that the unbeliever is suppressing the truth. Back to Romans 1 again, let that be your benchmark here. What we want to show is not that we know so much about ourselves and the world very well. From that we can prove that there must be a God as well. We want to show that from the very beginning you must know God. And if that's true, you've been suppressing the truth all along. We want to point to the suppression of the truth in the unbeliever. And the way we point to the suppression of the truth in the unbeliever is by arguing worldviews with him. Instead of saying, well, let's take this particular or that particular of the world and see if it leads us to God. What we do is we say, what is your total outlook on life? What is your approach to facts and logic and values and so forth? Let's see if that can get us to any knowledge about anything, if it can get us to any order in the world. We argue worldviews. And then secondly, we argue from the impossibility of the contrary. We contrast the worldview of the unbeliever and the worldview of the believer, showing that the unbeliever's worldview is impossible. Impossible because it leads to dialectical tensions. Impossible because it suppresses the presence of God as it is seen in the very nature of God, in the creation of God and the providence of God. Let me say that again. We want to point out the dialectical tensions in the unbelievers worldview. And we want to point out that he is suppressing the presence of God as we see it in his nature, his creation and his providence. Now, if you look at those three things I just mentioned, the nature of God, the creation of God and the providence of God. You will see there the inklings, the shadow, the hint of the three arguments we've been looking at the nature of God. We argue from the nature of nature of God. That's the ontological argument. We reason from creation and that is the cosmological argument. We reason from Providence, the order of things, the teleological argument. And what I'm asking you to do is to put these arguments within a presuppositional framework where what you challenge the unbeliever to do is to give an account of anything in his experience, to make sense of any fact of its origin or its design, to make use of any ultimate standard without having a Christian world and life view. And that, of course, is going to call for you pointing out the dialectical tensions within the unbeliever system and showing how the believer system, founded on the word of the Scripture, can account for science and logic and reason and all the rest that you're talking about. All right. Do you have any questions about the theistic proofs that you'd like to bring up?

Now, if I can come back to the P and Q qualification, please.

I'm asking about terminology.

We call each of those propositions the main proposition, the secondary proposition, conclusion. You call, call the two halves of the primary premise, the main premise, disjuncts.

Is that correct? Right. Okay.

The P and the Q disjunct. Does the term P mean anything? Does that stand for word?

It begins with P. No, no, it stands for a premise. Does Q mean anything? It stands for a premise. Any premise.

It's not an acrostic of some sort?

No, no.

P and Q are just standard devices for symbolizing premises.

And lastly, when you said not P, is that in the C glock, is that a minus sign or is that the current key?

Well, I've used both because both forms of symbol are used in the logical literature. No, not take away P, they mean not P. So that if we say it is raining today, P, P stands for the premise it is raining today, not P. Is it is not the case that it is raining today and.

They would use either A minus 4. Is there a name for that?

Yeah, it's called a curlicue. Okay.

That's all.

Okay. Yes, sir.

I'm getting a feeling that my whole faith is based on my presuppositions.

My premise is right. You're getting that feeling. You're getting the point of the class. Yeah. So in other words, Where do I get my premises? Let's ask that question to the Bible. What does the Bible say about where you get your premises? Okay, basically, it's the Bible. Well, no, as a matter of fact, the Bible says you get your premises first and foremost from natural revelation. Even before you read the Bible, you know there is a God. You know the living and true God and his character, you know what he requires of you. You know your guilt before him. You know these things. However, because you're also a sinner as well as a created human being, you want to suppress those things. And so when you ask people as they're growing up, do you know that God is such and such and requires such and such? No. You know, they try to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Why is it you fear to die then? Fear of the unknown? You know, I think it's probably fear of the very well known.

Do I hear you saying that before.

We read Bible, before a man reads.

The Bible, he knows there is God or is a God?

I'm saying that he knows the living and true God before he reads the Bible. Before he reads the Bible, that's right. What do you think Paul's saying in Romans 1?

Okay, check this out, guys. Now you say he knows the true and living God. Okay, what about. What can you say for.

These people?

That we're okay, the people speak it.

As an African, South America, the tribe.

Now, they worship a God, but is it the God?

No.

Well, why don't they know him?

They do know him. Paul says they know the living and true God. Wishing not to face the living and true God, they create idols to worship instead. And the idols don't have to be as crude as stone or wood, although they often are. The idol can be worshiping my own mind, worshiping sex, worshiping money, worshiping power, worshiping success. We always make something out of creation to be our ultimate concern, and we will treat it like a God. And so the tribes of which you are now speaking, they worship a God, but it's just in worshiping a God that they show their guilt before the living and true God. They know they're religious beings, but on the other hand, they don't want to worship the living and true God. So they make one more amenable to their own preconceived ideas of what God should be, they fashion a God in their own image, refusing to play the part that they should be. That is the image of God themselves.

Doctor, I'm having trouble with that, though. I'm telling you why. I mean, okay, I think I'm speaking for myself. If I was brought up right and brought up in our home, they said I was never exposed to anybody else. Just my parents.

Okay, Right.

And my family. And they're bringing me up to believe that the picture sitting on the table is God. Okay, okay. And I'm bowing out every Day of my life worshiping this picture.

That'S gonna be instilled in me. Sure is. It's there.

They have nothing else to let me know that. Okay, I'm thinking this picture of raising the sun, you know. You know, hanging the moon of everything, you know.

Well, you may be told that, but I think in your heart of hearts, you'd have a very hard time believing it. That's easy to say. No, I don't know. You know, I've done a little bit of work in a hostile environment philosophically, and I don't think it is so easy to say, say. But Paul teaches it. And our obligation is to adjust our thoughts and our conception of the world and of man to what the Bible tells us. I think God's in a far better position than I am to tell us what African tribes believe. And Paul says that all men, totally apart from the Bible are nantes tant theon, very simple, Greek. Knowing God, they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Now, when you point to the idolatry or to the worshipping of a pitcher on the table or what have you, you're certainly showing the suppression of the truth. But in just suppressing the truth in that way, they condemn themselves for they know the living and true God and yet they don't worship him as they ought. I think really what is going to make this come through to you is not anything I can say to you of a sociological or psychological nature. It's going to have to be coming to terms with Paul. And if Paul is saying that in Romans 1, then we've got a very powerful apologetic because we know in every man we talk to, he knows God. You know, the 19th Psalm tells us that the revelation of God is made known to all men. There is no speech where the language is not heard of God's revelation. Although it isn't verbal, there is no speech. There isn't anywhere anyone who hasn't heard the message of God in creation. And so I think it's the whole point of natural revelation that we're talking about here that may be hanging you up. Yeah, three points. First.

Helen Keller, before she was able to communicate, an older teacher. I knew God all along. I just didn't know his name. Secondly, I'm questioning what you mean by man knows God through nature, because to me that implies reason. Driver's a deception of what Paul was saying. God takes it upon his shoulder to communicate his presence, his existence to all men, his power and Godhead apart from nature, even. Or I think Alec Keller is an example of being cut off from nature, yet she still was knowledgeable of God. And then thirdly, maybe one of the things that would help Ronnie is although God has made his power in Godhead known and he's taken that responsibility by himself. Seems he's given the church the responsibility to also make the gospel known. Are you saying that the Gospel is also known to all people? I think of that differentiation could be help made.

Now, I'm assuming certain theological distinctions that perhaps I ought not to assume in this class. If you've had systematic theology, one of the things you will have been taught, I'm sure, is that general revelation communicates the character of God and His demand, but it does not communicate anything of the way of salvation, the way of redemption. The Savior is not known by nature or conscience. Only God in His justice and character are known by way of conscience and nature. Now, about your question as to whether it's known through nature. I think Paul says it's known both in the heart of hearts through man's conscience. It's also known by means of the created order. And so God does take it upon Himself to show these things to men. But I think he shows it through the medium of the created order. So as we look at the stars above and the beauty about us and so forth, we get, if we weren't sin blinded, a very clear conception of our Maker and what he wants of us. However, none of us knows exactly what that is and what it would be like, because none of us has been in the position of Adam to have that revelation come through without the distortion of our sin and our traditions and our upbringing and our environment and all the rest of the. And you're certainly right, the church has got to go and correct the misconception of natural revelation. And the only way that can be done is through the Savior and the proclamation of the good news of redemption. So I wasn't by any means trying to shunt that.

Another thing that I think might help Ronnie here. Several years ago when I taught apologetics, this problem of the word no came up. There's a bit of semantic deviation here. When we say no, let me put it in the form of a question. Does the natural man know God? The way I answer that question is yes and no. He knows, but he doesn't acknowledge. He has knowledge, but not acknowledgement. See, we use no in two sense. We mean no in the sense of no and no in the sense of acknowledge knowledge and acknowledgement. And what I think was Romans one is saying is he knows God, but he doesn't acknowledge God. We use know in both sense one and two. And to that automatically comes the second question, which has just been clarified by Harry. And that is, what does he know? How much does he know? He doesn't know the gospel. So I think we have to realize knowledge and acknowledge we experience. Equate them in English, sometimes we mustn't. In Romans 1, he has knowledge, but he does not act knowledge, he does not worship, he does not admit. And then secondly, he doesn't know all of it. He doesn't know the saving plan, for example.

Philosophically, knowledge is not by all philosophers, but the vast majority. Traditionally it's been defined as justified true belief. A man knows something, something. When he believes it, it's true and he has justification for it. It's not just a wild guess. He has some evidence for it. Now, does the unbeliever know God well? Is there any justification for it? Paul says in Romans 1, there's full justification for it in conscience as well as nature, if you will. Or what is known by through the created order. Is it true? Well, of course it's true. We know that it's true. Paul says it's true. We believe it's true. True on the basis of Scripture. The question is then, does the unbeliever believe in God? Does the unbeliever believe? The answer to that question is yes, he does. He does believe in God. And you can see that he believes in God by the way that his conscience condemns him. Or he excuses his conscience or excuses his activities. You can see he believes in God by the way he operates. Assuming the regularity of nature, you can see he believes in God because of his fear of death. You can see he believes in God, but he won't say that he believes in God. Now, as it turns out, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on this subject. Okay, So I guess it's kind of close to me. And if you don't mind, I'll take just a moment or two to say something about it. Can you say something about your doctoral dissertation in a moment or 2?

3 minutes?

3 minutes. The issue here is believing that he believes. I think Paul tells us that he believes that the living and true God is. But he does not believe that he believes it. And that's where the self deception comes in. He believes it, but he doesn't believe that he's such a person that believes in God.

Okay. Do you think that he does not believe to be so strong or so dominant that it just overrides his believing in it?

I think it always does override it. That's why I wrote this way. It's overriding it. See, his believing, his not believing is what comes to the fore when you ask the question, do you believe in God? And since he doesn't believe that he believes in God, he says no, since he doesn't believe that he does. But Paul's telling us he does believe. And this not believing is a form of suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. He misconstrues the evidence. He rationalizes the evidence to convince himself. I'm not the sort of person who believes in God. I'm not one of those people. I don't believe that I believe in God for him. It's just I don't believe in God. But we say of him on the basis of God's revelation, he does believe in God, but he doesn't believe that he does. And he sincerely does not believe that he does. Okay, so that's what we call self deception. What do you make of the mother who, after being called four times by the school principal about her son Johnny stealing lunch money out of the student's desk at school, the mother who goes down and takes Johnny out of school, puts him in another neighborhood, moves from that neighborhood herself, disconnects the phone so no principal can ever call her again, adamantly maintains that they were framing her son Johnny, that because he was such a brilliant student they wanted to put him down and so they framed him four or five times after all, about taking money out of the. Does she believe in the honesty and integrity of her son? Well, you just ask her. Of course she does. In fact, she'll get red in the face as she talks about it. She's so adamant that Johnny is an honest. No Jones child has ever stooped to such lowness as to steal lunch money out of a student's desk. But does she believe in the honesty of her son? Well, how do you account for all the rationalization, all the ridiculous explanations, the fact that she removes him from the situation? She won't even allow herself to get a call from a principal anymore. She doesn't believe that. She believes in the dishonesty of her son because she is self deceived. She cannot think of herself as the mother of a dishonest son. That's self deception, pure and simple. Self deception is deception of the self, by the self, about the self. And for the sake of the self, it's deception of the self. I'm going to fool myself. Okay. It's deception of the self. By the self, I will do it. I will fool myself for the sake of the self as for the sake of my self image as a person who is not a theist, as a mother who is a good mother and doesn't have a delinquent child. And about the self, about the self, I'm not somebody who believes something.

Could we have his prepositions again? Deception started again?

Self deception is deception of the self by the self. Okay, you're deceiving yourself of the self by the self for the sake of the self, that is to preserve a cherished self image. And about the self, you're deceiving yourself about what you really believe. You will not be tested on any of that. This is all an aside. I happen to think it's a very important aside, but that's because I've worked on it, I guess.

Do you think this believing and not believing that you believe, do you think my knowledge acknowledge says that? Are you happy with those terms, knowledge acknowledge?

I am. I think this goes a lot further than what you're saying there. But I think by not believing that he believes, he will not acknowledge that he believes. But the important thing is that he sincerely does not believe that he believes. Okay, now this is what we're getting at in Romans 1. All men know God, they believe have justified true beliefs that the living and true God is. And yet they will not believe that they believe it, and they will rather construe other gods out of creation to take the place of the living and true one. And I grant it's hard for us to understand that because none of us has had a pure, unadulterated, sinless, perfect perception of nature since the fall of man that hasn't been available. And since we haven't experienced, it's hard for us to say people really do it. But on the strength of divine revelation, I think we have to say that that does happen. And then the suppression comes in. And that's why I'm all into all of this natural theology in one word. Okay, you'll get it all right on the final exam, if you at least get this much. It may not be very detailed. Natural theology does not take proper account of the suppression of the truth. And so the proofs of God's existence become too easy or too impossible. Historically, the biblical conception of God is not the one proven. The methodological error at base is that it assumes the autonomy of man as though he were not suppressing the truth, as though he were able to prove God's existence with an open mind. And so, rather, what I suggest is that we show the men are suppressing the truth by arguing from the impossibility of the contrary. Showing you've been depending on the truth of God's existence all along. Even while you were denying it, you've been living on borrowed capital, to use the expression that came up in one of our class periods. Well, today's class was supposed to be given to the issue of theological language, and now we are one full hour behind instead of a half hour behind. So when we come together on. On Wednesday, I'll try to take up that issue, and I'll do the best I can to get to the question of the attributes of God. But I don't want to fall too far behind, lest we not get through the entire book. Thank you.