Dr Greg Bahnsen - Van Til's Presupp Apologetic: Cornelius Van Til & John Montgomery, Part 2 (Part 8)

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. Mere faith demands. I demand faith. I demand faith. No, Daniel says don't compare their demands for faith to compare their worldviews. What is the Muslim worldview? What is the naturalist worldview? What is the atheist worldview? What does the Christian worldview? Just compare the mere claim to our demand for faith. He's saying look at the worldview, the actual content of the two systems and decide which one will make sense of logic and fact. Now, although I'm not done in responding to Dr. Montgomery, my guess is that you will be done in if I don't give you a five minute break right about now. So let's take just a few moments and then we'll come back to it. Let's see if we can finish up this answer to Dr. Montgomery's criticisms of Dr. Van Til now and ask, does Dr. Van Til allow the unbeliever to justify himself by his alien starting point? That's the bold claim of Dr. Montgomery that if you just start with a different starting point than Van Til does, you can escape his argument. Because I got my starting point, you have yours. We can never deal with one another and in particular, many followers of Montgomery have asked me. Many people who don't follow Montgomery have wondered on their similar misreading of Van Til. Well, how would a Christian answer a Muslim after all? Because Muslims have a infallible revelation, or so they claim. They have their book, the Koran. Christians have their book, the Bible. Muslims have their absolute predestinarian God, Allah, not Christians. Muslims have that. Christians have their absolute predestinarian God, Jehovah, the Trinity. So how could a Christian ever answer a Muslim? Each begin with strong faith in their own book, their own revelations. They have their own presuppositions. They interpret everything in light of them. How could we ever deal with them? Now what did I just tell you before I break? I said we do not compare faith claims or faith demands. We compare instead worldviews. What is the actual position taught by the Koran? What is the position taught by the Bible? And you haven't called me here tonight to give you a Muslim apologetic. And so I won't be long in this. Just let me give you a real quick illustration. If you read the Koran, not a lot of fun, but if you read the Koran, you will notice that it teaches a doctrine of God's transcendence. God is other than man, different from man, far from man, distinct from man. It teaches a doctrine about God's transcendence, such that God is not affected by anything in the world. God is changeless, he is not interested, he cannot be affected by what happens in the world. And God is so different from man that nothing that is said in human language can be applied to God directly. And literally nothing that is said in human language can really apply to God because that would bring him down and have some overlap between the way we talk and the way he is now. The difficulty is, if that's your worldview, if that's your idea of God, how did you find out about it? How did you learn about this God, this God who is not affected by change in the world, this God who is so different from you and from your mind that nothing can literally be said of him in human language? Isn't the Koran allegedly an attempt to speak of this absolute, transcendent God, which when you read in the Koran, turns out to be a God such that nothing can be said of him? Isn't the Koran just a very obvious contradiction saying something about the unfayable God? So you see that if you look at the Muslim worldview, there are internal problems. And then also it turns out the Koran teaches that it is really based upon and harmonious with the other religions of the book. Muslims believe that they are the perfection of Judaism and Christianity. Christ is mentioned often in the Koran. Many people who haven't read it are not aware of that. Christ is another one of the prophets of Allah, of course. Now, not Jehovah, not the Trinity and Moses as well. Moses and Jesus are all great teachers in the line with Muhammad and in the religion of Allah. And since the Koran claims to be in accord with the other revelations, it's not difficult to show that what the Old Testament, Pentateuch or the New Testament Gospels say is in direct conflict to much of what the Koran says. And therefore, by looking at the whole worldview, you can test their own claims on their own basis. Evangelists do an internal critique of their worldview. On their worldview, you couldn't hear from God and yet they claim to have it on their worldview. Moses and Mohammad should have, coordinate, should harmonize, but they don't. And then there are factual errors of a terrible sort. Who is the mother of Jesus according to the Koran? Well, not the Virgin Mary, it turns out Eve. A slight mistake few years off. These sorts of mistakes, you see, can be used against them. We can start with the worldview of our opponent and reduce it to absurdity. The Quran cannot account for sin. How is it possible? If God predestined every single thing and there is absolutely no free will, how can man be guilty of sin? And even if you can account for sin, the Koran cannot provide an answer for it cannot provide relief because God's not affected by changes down here. And since that sin is a change, God made men upright. So they sought out many devices to use biblical language. Since there's been a change, salvation would call for God being cognizant of that and concerned about it. But according to the Quran, he's not. And so we have all these difficulties. You cannot produce a worldview that will account for man knowing things, not knowing things, for logic, for fact, for moral, absolute. And you have all these contradictions. So Dr. Montgomery is just wrong to try to say. To say. He doesn't just try to say. He claims that Van Til allows the unbeliever to justify himself by just having another starting point. According to him, if you just have another revelation like the Koran, then you can just do the same thing. Van Till says no. Dr. Van Till demands argumentation over the preconditions of knowledge. He says our starting points must be defended, our starting points must be argued. Well, if there's something behind your starting point, then of course your starting point is not the starting point. So how can you say, argue your starting point, Van Til, as I said before, Dr. Van Til says it takes not a direct argument, an indirect argument, a transcendental argument, an argument that says, let me stand on your position and see what sense it makes, drive it to absurdity. Then you stand on my position and I can show you that it will make sense. It will give the preconditions of science and morality and logic all the rest. The worldviews represented by these different starting points in faith can be compared. For after all, although the unbeliever doesn't say he is, he is in fact the image of God and he is using the biblical worldview without admitting it, suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. Even though he denies that he is the image of God, he does use biblical faith, creation faith, and he does see things. We can compare the worldviews and the defect in the unbeliever starting point or worldview can be shown. Mantill says, I would not talk endlessly about facts and more facts without ever challenging the non believer's philosophy of facts. The apologist must challenge the legitimacy of the scientific method as based upon an assumed metaphysic of chance. If this world really is just chance, how could there be any science at all, any reliability, uniformity at all? Christianity does not thus need to take shelter under the roof of known facts. It rather offers itself as a roof to fact if they would be known. One of my favorite quotes in Mantilla, you will forgive me if I read it again, won't you? Listen to this. Christianity does not thus need to take shelter under the roof of known facts. Here's all these conflicting worldviews and we run into the shelter and say the facts support us. No, Van Till says it rather offers itself as a roof to fact if they would be known. If you don't begin with Christianity, there are no facts whatsoever. Why is that? Well, just think what would it be like if this world were not controlled by a sovereign God? It would be sound and furious, signifying nothing. There'd be no reliability, no uniformity, no pattern, no universal, no commonality. It would just be a chance universe. And so the facts couldn't be known. They couldn't be organized, they couldn't be interpreted. No inferences could be drawn. There would be no interpretation, no laws to follow, no expectations, no regularity. So do Christians say, oh, we're going to take shelter under the facts. We can call for the facts. They say, no, if you want to hold that there are facts that can be known, they will take shelter under the roof of the Christian worldview. So again, Dr. Montgomery is just wrong as to what Van Till is saying. I'll be very quick on the last two. I have to be. Does Dr. Van Til treat unbelievers like believers? That's Montgomery's claim. He says, when you talk to a believer, your starting point is the Bible. When you talk to an unbeliever who doesn't believe in the Bible, your starting point has to be what he will accept. The common laws of reasoning, procedures of reasoning. Does Dr. Van Till treat the unbeliever like he were a believer? Well, as a matter of fact, the answer is that he treats the unbeliever as though he were both a believer and an unbeliever. Why is that? Because he is both a believer and an unbeliever. You say, how can that be? Remember what I said about self deception in earlier lectures? The unbeliever says with his mouth, I don't believe in God. I don't believe there's sovereign providential control of every fact. I don't believe in moral absolutes. He says that with his mouth. But in his heart of hearts he does in fact believe that there is a God who is in control of all things and whose character provides moral absolutes. He does believe those things but suppresses them by means of unrighteousness. That suppressed truth and the self deception of the unbeliever means we can press through, press beyond what he says with his mouth, what he espouses to be his worldview and presuppositions and argue that as a matter of fact he couldn't know anything if he wasn't living on borrowed capital. Living on the basis of the Christian worldview. And then finally, is Dr. Van Til a fetishist? A person who says there is no rational argument for Christianity? You just have to begin with faith and have this experience that it's right? Well everything I've quoted to you tonight belies that, doesn't it? Dr. Van Til is not a phidiat. As a matter of fact he's the far reaches of the opposite position in epistemology. Feedism says there's no rational argument, just have a faith experience. Van Til says faith, experience apart is an absolutely certain and rational argument for the truth of the Christian worldview. And he doesn't say it's very probably true. He says it's absolutely certain that it's true. Now you can decide for yourself whether he makes good on those claims or not. But that's what he's aiming to do. He's not aiming to do a feeding whatsoever. Ironically, it's Dr. Montgomery who claims in his apologetic that we can only show that Christianity is very probably true. Very probably true. Now look, if the ISM stands over here saying there's no rational argument for Christianity and Van Till is way over here saying there's an absolutely certain proof of Christianity, where would you put Montgomery when he says very probably Christianity is true? Well, he's somewhere between this absolute demand, the certainty of Christian truth and there is no rational argument. I mean he's somewhere between these two right? Now. Having put him somewhere between those two, I ask you who's closer to Feedism, Montgomery or Van Till? Enough of answering Montgomery's baseless claims against Dr. Van Till. Baseless. But I must say this, not to the credit of Dr. Montgomery, but I must say by way of explanation, many people, many people have thought them to be true. Many people have had these ideas about Dan Phil. And I'm glad tonight to have the opportunity to set them straight. Okay, now what is Dr. Montgomery's approach to apologetics? Well, you've heard it already. I will give you a little bit Better idea of what it is in just a moment here. But Dr. Montgomery says we need to have a historical argument for the truth of the Christian position. That when you have conflicting worldviews, the Christian and the non Christian must go out and look with an open mind for these neutral, uninterpreted brute facts and decide which position is supported by the facts, the non Christian or the Christian position. Now what kind of argument would he offer? Well, this is a summary of the argument he gives us in his book the Shape of the path. 1. On the basis of accepted principles of textual and historical analysis, the gospel records are found to be trustworthy historical documents, primary source evidence for the life of Christ. 2. In these records, Jesus exercises divine prerogatives and claims to be God in human flesh and he rests his claims on his forthcoming resurrection. 3. In all four Gospels, Christ's bodily resurrection is described in minute detail. Christ's resurrection evidences his deity. 4. The fact of the resurrection cannot be discounted on a priori philosophical grounds cannot do it in advance. Miracles are impossible only if one so defines them. But such definition rules out proper historical investigation. 5. If Christ is God, then he speaks the truth concerning the absolute divine authority of the Old Testament and of the soon to be written New Testament, concerning his death for the sins of the world and concerning the nature of man and history. 6. It follows from the preceding that all biblical assertions bearing on philosophy of history are to be regarded as revealed truth and that all human attempts at historical interpretation are to be judged for truth value on the basis of harmony with scriptural revelation. Okay, now that's Montgomery's historical proof of the truth of Christianity, of the Bible. Let's very quickly, in unbelieving fashion, which is what you have to do, put yourself on the unbelievers position and examine it very quickly. Let's do an audit of each of these steps. Montgomery says that on the basis of. How does he put it? On the basis of accepted principles of textual and historical analysis, the gospel records are found to be trustworthy historical documents. First of all, Montgomery would be very hard pressed to give us a list of the New Testament scholars alive today who say that. I happen to believe it, by the way, I think what he's saying is true. But to think that the unbelieving world in the liberal Christian world is ready to say that it's just naive, you just won't find it. But even if they did, on the basis of textual and historical analysis, accept the integrity of the New Testament text, how would that show that the New Testament text is a reliable or trustworthy historical document. How does one move from the fact that, well, lo and behold, John did write the Gospel of John and he did write it somewhere between, what shall we say, 60 and 90 AD just to give some latitude. How does the fact that the text was John's and was written in this time period prove that it's historically reliable? There's just a whole lot that's begged here. Well, so what? Let's get in there. In these records, Jesus exercises divine prerogatives and claims to be God in human flesh and rest his claims on his forthcoming resurrection. Well, why should we accept the Bible's word? Why should we accept that Jesus predicted his resurrection? Well, apparently we should accept the Bible's word because Christ did. Oh, why should we accept what Christ does? Montgomery says because he rose from the dead. Why should we believe that he rose from the dead? Because things we read about in the Bible prove that he rose from the dead. But why accept those indications in the Bible that he rose from the dead? Because the Bible is the word of God. Why accept the Bible as the word of God? Because Christ did. Why accept Christ's word? Because he rose from the dead. Why believe that he rose from the dead? Because the Bible tells us certain things that show us that he must have risen from the dead. Well, why accept that the Bible is evident? Because it's the Word of God. Well, why accept that it's the word of God? Because Christ did. Well, why? Except you begin to get the point. Montgomery, for all of his hatred of circular reasoning, is caught in it just inextricably. Montgomery cannot prove the resurrection unless he first assumes that the Bible is historically reliable in telling us things like the tomb was empty. But why accept that the tomb was empty? Because the Bible says it. Why except the Bible? Because Jesus did. Why? We're right back in it. He thinks he has this perfectly objective, inductive, step by step linear argument to his conclusion. And. And he begs the question all the way along the line. In all four Gospels, Christ's bodily resurrection is described in minute detail. Why except the minute detail? Notice this next step. This is amazing reasoning. Christ's resurrection evidences his deity. I happen to think that I believe that. But you know why I believe it? Because I have a Christian system of interpretation given to me by the Bible. Straight out. I begin with that worldview on Christ's self contesting authority. When he says it, I believe it. That's fine. But Montgomery says, oh no, you can't do that. You have to say, first, as a matter of fact, Christ rose from the dead and that fact is evidence of his deity. Okay, the argument goes something like this. I know I can't take a lot of time, but just to show you what we're dealing with, when we get into evidential apologetics, how terrible the reasoning is. Montgomery has to say something like, if Christ rose from the dead, then Christ is God. Now, what's going to happen? You notice that I didn't write Christ. I just gave a place marker a C here. What if it turns out that in the place of the name Christ, we substitute another one, like Lazarus? If Lazarus rose from the dead, then Lazarus is God. Doesn't look like a very good argument. Now, if Montgomery is true to his universal principle, then he has too many gods. And if he's not true to that principle, he can't use it in his argument. Now let's take it a step further. If Christ is God, then he speaks the truth concerning Da da da da. Well, what conception of God is that? Were the Greek gods on Mount Olympus unfailing truth speakers? No, they weren't. They were terrible individuals, terrible personalities. They deceived, they lied, they didn't keep their promises. They weren't truth speakers. So how can Montgomery just assume that if Christ is God, he tells the truth? That assumes what? The Christian conception of God. But that's what's in dispute, the Christian conception of God. So time is running short. And I say this not to give myself a pat on the back, but maybe I should tell you I have about 130 typed pages on Montgomery's apologetics for my book on Van Til's critics. And I give quite a few pages. It says here in my notes about 16 or 17. Just this sort of thing, paragraph by paragraph. This is a terrible argument. A terrible argument. Does that mean that the resurrection doesn't give us evidence for Christian truth? No, it doesn't mean that. It just means that you won't interpret the facts correctly unless you have an organizing, interpretive scheme for the facts. A worldview in terms of which, yes, the resurrection is evidence for deity. Yes, God wouldn't lie on a Christian worldview. You could say that. But Montgomery can't do that. Maybe I'll say this much more. Is it true that a miraculous interpretation is more likely as an explanation of certain things? More probable than a naturalistic explanation of them? Okay, let's forget the circular reasoning in Montgomery's saying that the tomb is empty. All right? He says the tomb is empty. Now, the disciples said that The Jews made up the story about a stolen body. I want to know why should. This is the real skeptical unbeliever. Why should we prefer the disciple story to the story of the religious leader? The Jews say the body was stolen. The disciples say it's a lie. Who do you decide with? Well, Montgomery says we should prefer the story of the disciples to that of the religious leader. Why? Because of their known character elsewhere. Their known character? What do we know of their character elsewhere? Who wrote about their character elsewhere? They did. You see the flaws in this argument? Believe me, it's not convincing. You get into a university setting and get somebody who's really listening and has some analytical ability and says, wait a minute, I'm going to accept it. Because they have shown me elsewhere that they aren't good people. Right. They're not the sort of people who are going to lie. No, what I read elsewhere is that they did have problems. They did sin. They did have to be corrected. Montgomery says. Now doesn't that prove it? They admit that it's just so down to earth. It's so realistic. Right. So you can count on them. Reminds me of the cadets of the Air Force Academy that were caught cheating. You notice that the cheaters had the good sense not to get a 100% on their test? No. I mean, this doesn't prove anything. Somebody says, how could the disciples have overpowered the guard here? Are these Romans stationed there? How could the disciples have done it? I'm saying, how could the disciples not have done it? Peter was willing to take them on in the Garden of Gethsemane with one sword only. Jesus saying, peter, put it up. You've got it wrong here. Stop them. I get the impression Peter was a burly man. I get the idea he probably had some friends around. They might have made a pretty credible effort at stealing the body. Hypocrites don't become martyrs. We are told these people died for their belief in the resurrection. Hypocrites don't become martyrs. Some it is, Right, I agree. And hypocrites didn't become martyrs. How do you know that? They died for their belief in the resurrection. You see, that's begging the question. That's just a fabricated church tradition to glorify the disciples. Somebody would say, or we could say, you know, later followers were hypocrites. They really believed Jesus rose from the dead. They bought this myth. They believed it and believing it, they were willing to die for it. That doesn't mean that it happened. It just means that they believed that it happened. Somebody says, well, then, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, why wasn't it falsified? The disciples claim that Jesus rose from the dead. If that's not true, why didn't the Romans prove it not to be true? You know, this is such a. What do you do when somebody overlooks the obvious? Well, the Romans didn't. The skeptics say the Romans didn't prove it to be true because the disciples disposed of the body effectively. There's a whole lot of earth over there in Palestine. They just found a very good place to bury it, and it was never found. Now, as a Christian, I'm very awkward because I'm cast by Montgomery if I'm going to be intellectually honest into playing the role of the skeptic and saying, does this argument work? Well, it doesn't. It's a terrible argument. Somebody says there were 500 witnesses that Jesus rose from the dead. No, as a matter of fact, Dr. Montgomery, you haven't read your Bible, right? We don't know that there are 500 witnesses. We only have one secondhand witness who claimed that there were 500 witnesses. To claim that there are 500 witnesses did not prove that there were. Okay, so I could go on. And I hope you begin to get the point that this argument for the resurrection is just a very poor and unconvincing argument. If you wish to be skeptical enough, and if I were an unbeliever, an intelligent unbeliever, and I didn't want to become a Christian, I would be skeptical enough. And since those are the people we're supposed to get through to, I'd say this argument for Christianity is woefully weak material. Yes, it's good within Christian circles. And by the way, you notice who usually buys this argument, Intervarsity students on the campus who are already Christian. And that's fine. That's appropriate. Christians ought to have evidential strengthening of their faith from such reasoning. But they only get it because they begin with what assumption? The biblical assumption. When you get a man who is so skeptical that he'll do all the little maneuvers that I've been giving you tonight, this thing is just going to melt like a snowball in the sun. Secondly, I want you to notice that there is a terrific internal conflict in Montgomery's approach to apologetics. And it can very quickly be indicated if I just tell you that the conclusion of his apologetic is that very probably Jesus rose from the dead. Very probably Jesus rose from the dead. Well, whether Jesus rose from the dead or not, I Just want you to look at the philosophical assumptions that are in conflict in that remark. In that conclusion, we have two parts, the very probably part. And then Jesus rose from the dead part. Let's ask ourselves, what view of the universe is required to believe that there is such a thing as prophetic probability? You have to believe there's, first of all, regularity in the universe. Right? I dropped the chalk once, I dropped the chalk twice, and so I say, okay, will it fall again? You say, very probably. Why? Because the universe is a regular universe. And so the very probably part means that Montgomery holds that there's regularity in the universe. If there wasn't regularity, all of its historical investigation would be for nothing. Without regularity, what good does it do to look at some artifact or some document because there's no way to trace it back to other. To make. Please turn tape over at this time. Without regularity, what good does it do to look at some artifact or some document, because there's no way to trace it back to other. To make inferences back to other propositions from that. There's no regularity. It's just sound and fury signifying, oh, this is a chance universe. So when he says very probably, based on my evidence, something happened then, you know, he's a scholar who believes in regularity in the universe. Now, forget what I just told you, Block this part out on the board and just tell me what view of the universe is assumed. When we say a man rises from the dead, is that what you say regularly happens? You know, when you go to funerals, is that what you see happening all the time? No, I'd say that's a miracle. Right. So, as a Christian, Montgomery holds there's such a thing as miracles. Are miracles regularities or irregularities in nature? Well, they are irregular events in nature, aren't they? So under miracle, I'll write irregular. And I guess you can see what I'm going to say now. The whole time Montgomery's arguing as a scholar, he's trying to prove on the basis of regularity that something very irregular happened. He uses regularity to prove irregularity, Very probably based on my autonomous historical method, which means the universe has all these regularities. Very probably something happened which is totally contrary to probability. Well, what view of the universe do you want to have? The unbeliever is going to demand of Montgomery uniformity or non uniformity? Another problem with Montgomery's approach, this is thirdly, if you will, is that he does use this notion of probability. Montgomery's approach does reduce to What I think is an unscriptural view of probability. He says, we can only know very probably that Jesus rose from the dead, but in accordance with the sure word of God. We must stress, and I think we must diligently defend the fact that we can have certainty outside the realms of logic and mathematics, that we can know certain facts of history, certain theological or metaphysical truths, certain ethical propositions with certainty, not just with probability. Montgomery says, no, we can only have probability, but I think the Bible says otherwise. The Bible communicates certain matters of fact to us, such as the resurrection. And in fact, According to Acts 2:36, based on the apostolic word, we can, and I quote, know assuredly the Greek know without doubt that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ by the resurrection. In Second Corinthians 4. 6. Our conviction comes from the powerful Creator who has shined in our hearts for enlightenment of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Christ. Matthew 11:27 the Eternal Son of God has revealed the Father to us, and the result of that is not knowledge of the Father. Our conviction does not rest on flesh and blood, but on God. According to Matthew 16:27 and therefore 1 Thessalonians 1:5, the gospel comes to us not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit. And full assurance. The Bible says. In Colossians 2:2, the Bible speaks of our full assurance of understanding, Hebrews 6:11, our full assurance of hope with respect to faith. Abraham is the Father of all of us. Romans 4 says, and he was not weak in faith, but had full certainty with respect to God's word. Look at verses 19 and 21 of that chapter. Hebrews 10:22. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Verse 23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope unyieldingly. Well, I could go on. In fact, as you can see, there are plenty of verses here we can read. The Bible does not teach. McGom reviewed probability. The Bible says we can know with full confidence and assurance without doubt that Jesus rose from the dead, that God is the Creator, that murder is wrong, or whatever else you want to talk about. Montgomery's view of probability is just not the Bible's approach to these things. And when your apologetic comes short of claiming what the Bible claims, then your apologetic is at least subscriptural, if not at that point anti scriptural. Another point we need to make about Montgomery. He says that if we're going to allow that miracles take place in this world, we must hold to an indeterministic view of the universe. We may not be Calvinists. He quite clearly says that. Read a Fetris article for Van Tild. He says it elsewhere in the shape of the past. In fact, he says it very often. He has a definitely Lutheran view of God's relationship to the universe, to the world. And he says God does not predestine whatsoever comes to pass because if he did, everything would be determined in advance. We must have a view of the universe where there is, if you will, open opportunity. We have to have an open view of history. He says, to put it in other words, there must be some room for chance so that things can happen irregularly. He says this is the only way to protect miracles. In a strange way, the only way to protect miracles is to believe in predestination. I think, because in a chance universe, everything's a miracle. You know, in a chance universe, it's a miracle that you're still sitting in these stairs, not because it's a miracle. You want to continue listening to me? But I mean, so you sat in your chairs during the first hour. How do you know that's going to work the second hour? Why is there any common humanity in a chance universe? Why do the words I speak mean anything to you in a chance universe? I mean, everything that happens in a chance universe that's understandable is a miracle. And so I think Montgomery's wrong there. But more importantly, if Montgomery says the only way we can defend miracles is by denying predestination, then we've really got a problem. You know why? Because the Bible teaches predestination. And I'm not going to stop to defend that tonight. I think that's done sufficiently in our creeds and confessions and there's plenty of doctrinal work you can pick up to do it if you want. I'll come back and do that some night. But I'm assuming this audience already knows that. And if the Bible teaches predestination and the Bible teaches miracles, then Montgomery is the one who is wrong to think you can only defend the possibility of miracles by denying predestination and holding to a chance universe. Another criticism of Montgomery. He says we must have a fully objective argument for God's existence. For the truth of Christianity, we must be objective. The difficulty is that objectivity, epistemological objectivity, is something which, well, it is so old fashioned, I hate to put it that way, but it is so old fashioned in epistemological circle to believe you can have that sort of thing. Then Montgomery really needs to Tell us much more. In light of the work of men like Quine at Harvard and Thomas Kuhn and the philosophy of science and many others that I mentioned in my article on epistemology. Not my article, my lecture on epistemology earlier this week. In light of these sorts of things, Montgomery, I think, is just holding a naive understanding that you can have brute facts, these uninterpreted facts out here, that theories don't interpret the way we perceive the world, the theories don't affect the way we perceive the world. But I don't think that's the case. Modern epistemologists don't think that's the case. An inductive and empirical approach to epistemology has numerous philosophical which, if we were going to accept, I mean, if we're going to accept Montgomery's approach, those problems must be surmounted. And certainly Dr. Montgomery hasn't surmounted them. And for the sake of time as well as for the sake of your sanity, I'm not going to bother to go back and rehearse that lecture I gave. But if you weren't here, or if you've forgotten, pick it up and you'll see there are numerous problems with the idea that we have a vision, a clear vision of fact that's not affected by the way we've been brought up, by our perspective, by our language, by our interpretation. I hold what is called a theoretical view of knowledge, not an observational view of knowledge. Observation is very important. I don't deny that for a moment. But I don't believe there can ever be an understandable observation unless there's first a theory in terms of what the observation is interpreted. And so Montgomery's objective, allegedly objective approach to argumentation is simply not philosophically credible. There is no objectivity of the sort he claims. And then something very strange after all these very strong points made by Montgomery that we must have an objective approach, we must have a historical argument, we must have common facts, we must drive the unbeliever from his position with his objective, factual, empirical argument. Something very strange happens when someone looks deeper. You bother to read everything Montgomery has said, you'll notice that his apologetic is even worse, in even worse condition than I have been talking about tonight. Although it is his, I think, defunct objective argument that Montgomery spends nearly all his time presenting or discussing in his book. It turns out that in actuality, the structure of Montgomery's apologetics shows itself to be at bay, experiential. Now, I know I've said this a number of times to advocates of Montgomery's approach and they say oh no, you're wrong. Montgomery has an objective argument for the resurrection. We're not seediest, we aren't subjectivists. We don't believe that experience is the proof of Christianity. The experiential proof is become a Christian, I'm a Christian and it feels good. Now that's really a terrible caricature. But you see when you get into an argument that's what it's going to be reduced to. If you try to use that in an argument it isn't going to work very well. The experiential argument is I have an internal subjective satisfaction with Christianity which shows me that it's true. Now that informed much of what Montgomery says is not the sort of thing he would do and yet it turns out that is what he does. And they come as an initial surprise to anyone who is familiar with the reputation propagated by Montgomery that he has an experiential argument. Despite all the stress on induct disprove. In the final analysis Montgomery defends the faith by appealing to personal subjective experience. Montgomery describes his own conversion as coming about by a two step process, process. And this is from his book where is history going? Pages 38 and 39. He says first there was historical evidence, but then through, and I quote, a resultant experiential, existential if you will, satisfaction with the Christian worldview. His apologetic is actually structured on the same scheme. In the Face of the past. Page 143 he says the resurrection provides the basis in historical probability for trying the Christian faith. Page 140 of the same book. The argument is intended rather to give solid objective ground for testing the Christian faith experientially. The real or underlying proof of Christianity in Montgomery's apologetic is self satisfying experience then having Christ claimed to test it existentially. For he says and where is history going? Pages 35 and 6 God's Word will attest itself in his personal experience. Montgomery says the honest inquirer. This is the sage of the past. Page 140 the Honest Inquirer needs objective ground for trying Christianity since there are a welter of conflicting religious offspring and one can become psychologically jaded through indiscriminate trials of religious belief. Only the Christian worldview offers objective ground for testing it experientially. Therefore Christ deserves to be given first opportunity to make his claims known to the human heart, heart, not mind, which is significant at least in what Montgomery is trying to say. What is the resurrection argument all about then? Montgomery's saying People will get jaded if they try to, you know, try Buddhism. How does that feel? Okay, try Jainism. How does that feel? Try Rosicrucianism. How does that feel? Try Jehovah's Witnesses. How does that feel? Try Christianity. How does that feel? He says, look, if you tell people to go through the taste, taste, taste, taste test, what happens to the palate? It gets dated, right? You can't taste anymore. You're not really discerning things. So to prevent that from happening, Montgomery says, we must show people that there is this historic argument for the Resurrection so that they'll try Christ first and hopefully then that will appeal to their heart. This is amazing, but a person who criticizes Van Till wrongly, I think, but criticizes Van Til whether it's right or wrong for reducing to subjectivism. Montgomery, as a matter of fact, advocates that very approach subjectively. Christ satisfies my heart, and so it's true. Why do you go to this experiential test? Because the Resurrection argument says, give Christ the first opportunity to prove himself to your heart. Oh, Montgomery's objective apologetic is so much like the wizard of Oz, isn't it? When you get to the city of Oz, you hear the bellowing voice, the large authoritative claims, objective evidence for the resurrection, objective proof, rational demonstration. And when you pull the curtain back, you find not some huge grand ruler. If you find some little midget of a man, he says, in fact, try it because it feels good. You see, Montgomery, and I'm saying this strongly because you really need to read the tone and the demeaning nature of what Montgomery says about Van Sil, which is so unfair. McCa, Montgomery has every right to criticize them mistakes. And that needs to be pointed out. By all means, I'm not following Van Til out of some kind of, you know, idol worship that just says, I don't want my idol to be wrong. But when Montgomery criticizes Anvil, he has a Christian obligation to understand what he's talking about and a Christian obligation to be a good scholar and present good arguments against him. And he doesn't. And in the light of that failure to do that, the ridicule, the little story he likes to tell to make fun of the presuppositional approach. So a kind of arrogance which is unacceptable. Now, in the light of that arrogance, I think we need to come back and say, okay, Montgomery, let's see some argument that is, if you will commensurate with the stimulus here, if you have really jacked this thing up, there's going to be this really tough factual proof for Christianity. Let's see it. And what I'm getting at is, when all is said and done, Montgomery is only saying, try Jesus first. Hopefully he'll appeal to your heart. Well, I'm glad that Jesus has appealed to Montgomery's heart. He's appealed to mine, too, and I'm glad that he's a Christian. But we're not talking about Christian fellowship now. We're not talking about our experience of faith. We're talking about proof to unbelievers. And Montgomery simply hasn't got it. He finally appeals to subjective satisfaction. And I don't really think this audience needs to be told of the problem of appealing to subjective satisfaction. You see, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are fine for me, but you may need baloney, and I may think your philosophy is full of baloney, but as a matter of fact, you say it satisfies me. I think one other thing needs to be said about Montgomery and his saying that empirical confidence or empirical observation and experience has got to be more important than appeals to the Bible. This is another aspect of his criticism of Van Till. Van Till makes the Bible more important than my empirical experience. And I just want to give you three verses very quickly to show you that that's just the way it should be. The Bible is more epistemically certain than is my personal experience, even my empirical experience. The first is found in John 20, verse 29. The Gospel of John, 20th chapter, verse 29. You're familiar with this? Thomas answered him. I'm reading verse 28 to give you the context. Thomas answered Jesus after his resurrection. My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Do you believe because I've given you empirical evidence? Thomas, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. Now, how are we going to possibly believe that Jesus rose from the dead without seeing it? Only on the apostolic word, right? And Jesus said, blessed are those who touch the apostolic word even in the absence of that empirical proof. Moreover, in Matthew 28:17, the verse right before the Great Commission, very few, in fact, I don't think I've ever heard anybody preach on this verse. Very interesting. Jesus is gathered together with his disciples right before he gives them the Great Commission to the Church. And it says there that they bowed down to him, they worshiped him. But some doubted. You know that. Now, we're not talking about people who are like Thomas, you know, seven days off by themselves and haven't been given the evidence. We're talking about people who are worshiping the resurrected Savior. And the Bible says, even in the presence of the most sterling empirical credentials, they doubt it. And then finally, second Peter 1:19, admittedly in this particular passage there are two interpretations of the Greek. I can't go into all the exegesis for you. This is one time where I'll just ask you to either read on your own and get the arguments both ways or just take me at my word at the way that I decided that it properly should be interpreted. But in second Peter 1:19, Peter, having said that he was an eyewitness of the transfiguration of Jesus, says in verse 19, but we have the more sure prophetic word. Peter says, I have this eyewitness experience. Experience. But the prophetic word is even surer than that. Other translations say the prophetic word is made more sure by Peter's experience. But I think what he's saying is that the word itself is more sure than his experience. And therefore I would not commend to you Dr. Montgomery's apologetics. I don't think it has a scriptural approach. It is a probability argument rather than a certainty argument. There are internal conflicts in it. He has to deny predestination to make it work. It falsely claims objectivity when it's not there. In the end it winds up being a subjective argument and it tells us we should trust our senses more than we trust the prophetic words, which, as I see it, is contrary to what the Bible teaches us. And in the end, remember all the problems we had at the beginning with the argument. He just doesn't have a terribly good argument for the resurrection if do you wish to be skeptical enough? So Montgomery has not given an adequate reputation of Van Til. And secondly, Montgomery has not made good on his own claims to an objective, inductive argument for Christianity. That's all I want to say about Montgomery. 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.