Dr Greg Bahnsen - Van Til's Presupp Apologetic: R C Sproul and Francis Schaeffer Previewed (Part 9)

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 Christian critical.

Of presuppositionalism as taught by Dr. Van Til. We'll have to deal with RC Full, whom I take to be as a leading representative of the old Princeton apologetical method. The old Princeton method. I'm going to be very simplistic for the sake of brevity. The old Princeton method is we must build step by step the Christian view. First, we must prove that there is a God, very probably. And we prove that by using the standard theistic proof. So we may choose one that's popular or familiar to us and use it. First we prove by rational argumentation that there must be a God. And then we prove by historical argumentation that Jesus is the son of that God and the Bible is his Word. Step by step. First the theistic proof as we find them, for instance in Thomistic apologetics, the apologetic of Thomas Aquinas. And then we use the historical type of argumentation found in in Bishop Butler's Arminian approach to apologetics, where if we just understood the course of history, we understood our senses well enough, then we can understand that the Bible must be the word of God. Now Sproul advocates just that kind of apologetic. He also criticizes Dr. Van Till. Here we have it in Christianity Today, November 4, 1977. Sproul made this offhand remark in his criticism of certain schools, Christian schools. Title of the article. You can't tell a school by its name, he says, and I'll just read the relevant sentence. Feedistic philosophies developed by which theology could be defended on grounds other than natural reason. Westminster Seminary is the most notable and successful school of this site. Doesn't mention his name, but you know who he's talking about. And if you have any doubt, you can order the tape on Cornelius Van Til provided by the Ligonier Valley Study center, in which he comes right out and he says, van Till, FAA feeding us. Montgomery said that too, didn't he? So I guess you see what I'm going to say to that. Sproul, you're a lot closer to fideism than Van Til because you only think very probably Christianity is true. By the way, Sproul tells us what fideism is. He says this is another sentence on something altogether, but it does show you what he understands. Other words. On the contrary, this method eschews such a defense for introducing foreign rationalistic elements into a purely fadistic approach. The deism's over here, rational approaches over here. And he says, van Till. I'd say Van Till holds to the utter rationality of Christianity and stack much better than Sproul does. Another defect, Sproul says, and I have a transcript here of his lecture on Van Til, critical of Van Till. He says that, and I read, I do not agree with Dr. Van Till in his preference of Kuyper over Warfield. I agree with Warfield over Kiefer. There's only one real big problem with that, and that's that I can show you in half a dozen places in Van Till's writings where he says we shouldn't choose Kuyper or Warfield. We should use what's best in both of them. So he hasn't understood the system Again. And then, reading from Sproul's article in the book God's Inerrant Word, edited by John Warwick Montgomery, Sproul's article says, the weakness of Van Til's method. The weaknesses of Van Til's method are focused in its dependence upon circularity in argument. The clear and present danger of this approach is subjectivism. According to Sproul, Dan Till just says, you must begin with my starting point. And if you don't, then you can't be right. Objectivism. Because the other guy's going to say, you must begin with my starting point. And if you don't, then you'd understand correctly. Somebody hear an echo in this room begins to sound like plush. What Montgomery has been saying about Van Til for a long time. The same basic type of criticism, likewise founded on the same basic misunderstanding of what Van Till is getting at. Van Till talks about circular argumentation, and in the sense, maybe that's unfortunate because he doesn't always explain himself as much as he ought. But there are places where he does make it very clear that by circular he doesn't mean God exists because God. That's a circular argument. At one point he says, maybe we shouldn't call it circular. We should call it spiral reasoning, because we're not appealing to the same fact that we're trying to prove. It's rather that we're showing that if you don't assume what you're trying to approve in the Christian worldview, you can't give an account. You can't make intelligible any fact or logic. So you're always assuming the Christian position, even when you're arguing for the Christian position that as we have put down on the board and explained before the transcendental method of reasoning, it's not Circular in the way that Sproul has interpreted. It's rather circular in a transcendental way. Now, what is Sproul's apologetic? I'm going to give you three real quick examples. In my criticisms of them, Sproul believes we should take the classical approach, the Princetonian approach, the old Princetonian approach to apologetics. We first proved that God exists. Now, when I was teaching at Reformed seminary, we asked Mr. Sproul to come in and present some apologetic lectures. He also had a debate with me on apologetic method. And in both a lecture that he presented as well as the debate he had with me, he adamantly maintained that the cosmological argument for God's existence was a good argument. The cosmological argument? Well, it has many forms. I don't pretend that it doesn't, but they all are something like this. This world needs a cause. Therefore God exists because he's the cause of this world. Every effect has a cause. Which by the way is not real helpful since that's true by definition. Every effect has a cause. This world is an effect. Therefore there's a cause of this world which we call God. That's simple. But that's basically what he says. You'll find this argued in his book, which I don't have. I see. But you'll find this argument in his book answers to objection. Sproul says there must be something eternal. If anything exists, then there must be something eternal. All right, the end believer says fine, matter is eternal. Something must be eternal than natur is. When I propose that to rc, both publicly and then also when we have talked privately, he told me, now look, if you look at the material world piece by piece, everything in the material world is contingent. That is to say, it isn't determined and necessary. It doesn't last forever. It's not immutable. It goes out of existence. Even the oldest trees in California eventually fall down and die. Everything goes out of existence. So if the material world at this point tends toward non existence and at this point tends toward non existence and tends toward non existence at this point and that point, then we must say that the whole of the material world tends toward non existence as well. And consequently it can't be eternal because whatever can happen in eternity will have happened. I hope that whets your appetite. Come back. I'm going to show you that there are logical fallacies an arm long in all of that reasoning. If a part of the material world goes out of existence, does that prove that all of the material world goes out of existence? Well, that doesn't prove that all of the material world goes out of existence. But even if it did, does it prove that all of it goes out of existence all at once? Why is it that we couldn't have a part of the material world which is getting old, grandfatherish, about ready to die, and it, through evolution or cosmic bang or whatever you have, creates another part of the material world and then the old part goes out of existence, and then this new part continues, then it gives birth to a new part, to a new part into a new part, and then subsequently all the grandfather parts go out of existence. Why can't you just have an eternal succession of material worlds like that? Now, I don't have to believe that I think there are problems with it. But you can't argue that just because there is something, there must always be something that, and that must be God. In the end we could just say, well, that's something that matter. Then again, at the second step of Sproul's apologetic, he wants to use the classical argument to prove the Bible to be God's word. Tell me again if you hear an echo in the room, here's his argument. Premise 1 the Bible is a basically reliable and Trustworthy document. Premise 2 On the basis of this reliable document, we have sufficient evidence to believe confidently that Jesus was Christ is the Son of God. Jesus Christ being the Son of God, is an infallible authority. Jesus Christ teaches that the Bible is more than generally trustworthy. It's the very word of God. Premise 5 the word that the Word and that it comes from God is utterly trustworthy because God is utterly trustworthy. Conclusion on the basis of the infallible authority of Jesus Christ, the Church believes the Bible to be utterly trustworthy. That is infallible. Now, what is the argument that on the basis of this reliable document, we have evidence to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he rose from the dead, and that all the alternative explanations won't account for it. That's exactly the argument used by Montgomery. And since we criticized that rather thoroughly, then you get an idea of the second step in the critique of scroll is going to be that. Then the third one that I will give you is that when he deals with naughty, that is to say K N O T P Y not N A U G H D y naughty. Gnarled problems in apologetics. His approach to apologetics shows itself to be woefully inadequate. I think the biggest problem in apologetics, the biggest problem to answer from the non Christian, is the problem of evil. It says if, as the Bible says, God is all powerful. And if, as the Bible says, God is all good, how can an all powerful, all good God have allowed evil in this world? A good God wouldn't want it. A powerful God could have prevented it. Therefore, God is either not good or not powerful because there's evil in the world. Now to this, RC Swoll takes an interesting approach. He discusses all the possibilities, all the qualifications we have. He says it does look like a contradiction, and I guess in the end it's a mystery and we just can't resolve that contradiction. But there's plenty of evidence for the truth of the Bible and we hope that the evidence is strong enough to convince people that the Bible is true, even though we have this little tickler of a problem. Believe me, he doesn't say it in just that way. I'm emphasizing it much differently than he does. But those are the relevant points. We can't resolve the contradiction absolutely, but we do appeal to evidence. The difficulty is that once you admit that you have a contradiction in your system of thought, all the evidence in the world will be swallowed by it, will be gobbled up by it. Because if we're going to say, sure, you have plenty of evidence that all fits this side of your system, but the other side of your system contradicts it. And if you have evidence for both sides, the A and the not a side, then you just have evidence for a contradiction. So the contradiction either belies your evidence or your evidence supports the contradiction and you don't get out of it. One must have an argument against that that relieves the Christian position of contradiction. Now I'm going to do a terrible thing. I'm going to tell you there is an argument that relieves the Christian position of contradiction on it. And if you come back next time, I'll tell you what it. Okay, a couple minutes now on Francis Shaffer. I will readily admit that of all the people that I've been asked to criticize this week, the hardest one emotionally is Schaeffer. For me, okay, it's hard not to like Dr. Schaeffer. It's hard not to appreciate much of the work he's done. He certainly wants to see young people converted. He wants to see people brought into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, Christ and living Christian lives. He wants to see the emotional and cultural problems that people believe. That has to be appreciated. Even if you don't think that academically his position is all that strong. And I do appreciate it and I appreciate much of his writings, much of it is good for preaching illustrations. Much of it is good for showing what a Christian outlook on culture should be. But when all is said and done, my job here is not to tell you all the really nice things and emphasize that it's to to tell you what the heart of his argument is and to reflect on it in the heart of Schaeffer's argument. Well, let me put it this way. Gordon Clark says if Christianity is true, it will be the most logically consistent system. And so he tests Christianity with logical consistency. He says Christianity is the most logically consistent, therefore it's true. Montgomery says if Christianity is true, there will be historical evidence. He tests it by empirical standards of evidence, and he says there is evidence and therefore Christianity is true. R.C. sproul, the old Princeton approach. If Christianity is true, then there is an argument for God's existence and the resurrection of Jesus. Christ wants to test it by both, if you will, reason in the general sense of that the theistic truths use reason and then also specifically empirical reason on the resurrection. And so that again, the Bible is being tested by another standard and shown to pass the test, hopefully as summa cum laude, as Danza would say. And then we come to Schaeffer, and basically what Schaeffer says is if the Bible is true, it will give us a foundation for our personal dignity, for man's personality. It will make sense out of man's desire for a human rather than a dehumanized understanding of the world, culture, and himself. Okay, now I realize you find that argument spread through many books, but that basically is the structure of the argument, is that Christianity accounts for man's desire, that there is dignity, that there is man's not just a machine, if you will. He's not just a cog in a universal machine. This universe has personality. Man is a personality. Christianity can account for that. Well, you know, the Marxists say that Christianity, that religion in general is the opiate of the masses. It's the drug that is needed to make people feel better about the miserable plight in which they find themselves. And a Marxist, I think, could easily say to Dr. Schaeffer, well, you may well be right in this. Christianity does give us the feeling that we are worthwhile as a heavenly father. We aren't cogs in the universal machine. We aren't the result of impersonal evolution. But that's just what we've been saying. Religion caters to the subjective needs and wants of man, but it doesn't necessarily show it to be true. And that in the apologetical Game is really the issue. The bottom line, is it true? Not Is it comfortable? Dr. Schaeffer, that is very abbreviated. There's another, if you can shift gears real quick, another line of argumentation that I will be giving you. Dr. Schaeffer says in Death in the City, one of his books. In the chapter entitled the Universe in Two Chairs, he likens the Christian arguing with the non Christian scientists. The two people who are in a room where all the blinds are pulled, all the shades are drawn, and there's two chairs there, and they pull in all their books, as I recall. And the scientist goes on to explain reality to the Christian. He goes on and on and on and on and on and on. And he gives all this great information about the facts and what we know about the world from science. And Safer then says, or the apologist then says, yes, this is very good. You've told me much about the world. That is all right as far as it goes. You, as it were, have half the orange. And now let me, as a Christian, tell you about the other dimension of reality, the other aspect of reality that you haven't accounted for. I'll give you the other half of the orange. And so basically, Shakespeare's approach is to say when it comes to explaining natural things or the material universe, you're perfectly all right as far as you go. You've learned much about it. Not challenging him to say you couldn't know anything, you couldn't account for this knowledge if you weren't already using Christian premises. But rather, you're all right as far as you go. You have nature explained. Let me add to that grace. Let me add the realm or the dimension of grace, religion to that which you haven't accounted for. Autonomy is fine up to a point, and then after that you need revelation to add in the missing part. Dr. Van Til says, by contrast, no, the unbeliever on his own presuppositions can't account for even advances in medical science and the ability to build bridges and all the rest. The unbeliever does have a lot of knowledge, but he only has the knowledge that he does because he's been assuming all along that there is a God who providentially controls all things and has such a character that there are moral abstinence that God is believed by the non believer. The truth is suppressed in unrighteousness. He then turns around and says, here are all these naturalistic principles. We don't believe in God, we don't believe this, that and the other. We can still account for the world. We should rather challenge the scientists to give an account of how he can build bridges and go to the moon and do open heart surgery. How is all of this possible in a chance universe? Just to give one example of the challenge that can be offered, we don't want to say you have half the orange, we'll give you the other half. We want to say that if what you say is true, there's nothing but rotten oranges. Nobody can know anything. So the difficulty I have with Schaeffer is that one, he caters to the Marxists and other critiques that Christianity is just convenient, subjectively convenient. Two, he gives too much credit to the autonomous man. And three, Shakespeare basically does what Clark does, what Montgomery does, what Sproul does. He has some standard which he believes the unbelieving man, some standard which the autonomous man is supposed to apply to the Bible and hope that the Bible passes the test. He proves the Bible by a standard outside the Bible. In Shakespeare's case, the standard of human personality, does it meet the mannishness of man? Clark, does it meet the demands of logic? Montgomery doesn't meet the demands of empirical fact. Sproul really kind of amalgamation of all of them, in a sense, in every case, as C.S. lewis said, God is in the dock waiting for the judgment of man who is at the bar. And man applies a standard, a reasonable standard, logic, fact, personality, whatever it may be. But until God passes the test, man won't admit him into his worldview. Van Til says, on the other hand, we should not allow the natural man to get away with that rul of thing. We should rather challenge him at the very heart of his procedure to give an account of the intelligibility of personality, the intelligibility of logic, the intelligibility of empirical facts. If he doesn't have a Christian worldview, all the other apologists we've talked about this week build up the Christian commitment on the basis of a standard that they think is intelligible all by itself. Van Til says we must begin with Christian commitment, or none of those other standards make sense. And that's why I believe for all of the good, and there is good to be found in Montgomery, in Sproul, in Clark, in Schaeffer, that for whatever good can be found in many passages I could cite, that would be perfectly fine with the Van Tilian approach. For all of that, the vast. Well, I don't want to say the majority of what you find, but at least the center of gravity and the apologetical thrust of these men is directly contrary to what Van Til was doing. They are not cousins in one family of apologetics. They may be brothers in the church, and I'm glad to acknowledge that. But as to apologetical types, schools of thought, methodological comparison, Van Til is in a class all by himself. Now, you may argue that's a bad class to be in. You may say it's lower class rather than upper class, but you will not, I think, be able to sustain the argument that he's doing and attempting to do the same thing that these other men are. Van Till says there are no standards that make sense apart from the Christian worldview. The others say we can build up the Christian worldview piece by piece, by a standard that can be understood and used without that worldview first assumed. And consequently, I would recommend to you, as a result of the lectures I've given you this night, a reinvestigation, if not a further investigation, of the writings of Dr. Van Till and the presuppositional approach to apologetics, I think the Christian Church will be far better off if it improves not only its preaching in this day, not only its style of witnessing this day, but it improves and strengthens the argument that it can offer to an unbelieving world that without Jesus Christ, nothing makes sense. Let's pray. Our Lord. We do pray tonight that throughout this week, what we have said, what we have advocated, will be true to the Scriptures. For it would be a terrible, terrible thing if we, who advocate the Scriptures as our presupposition and ultimate standard, went about developing a methodology for defending the faith which is not true to the faith as presented in the Scriptures. We pray that you would make us ever more faithful to them, that you would increase our understanding of them by your Holy Spirit, open our eyes to see, to understand, and give us a willingness to obey what is found in the inspired word of God. We pray also that you would give us discernment and mental acuteness that we would not get lost for all of the ambiguous things that are said, all the confusing disclaimers, contrary claims, that we would not get lost in comparisons, and the many details of the various apologetical schools we have seen. We pray you would give us an insight into those fundamentals, basic issues that make one school of thought differ from another. Will you pray that if we've been accurate in what we have said about schools of thought, that you would help us to be faithful to that which is truer to the Scripture, though imperfect, truer to the Scriptures than these others? May we honor you above all as the source not only of life, but of light. Honor you as the author of all truths. Honor you as the sovereign God to whom we must give an answer and not the one who is to be demanded to give an answer to us using our feeble, our fallen and our often fallacious tangents of thinking. Lord, we pray that you would forgive us for putting you to the test. We know this violates your law, that it's a violation of the very difference between us as creatures standing before our Creator. We pray you would humble our mind, Lord, in the midst of that humility, in appreciation and gratitude for the grace you've given us in our salvation, we pray you would also give us a boldness, the same boldness we've seen in the Apostle Paul who could call out, where is the why? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Lord, enable us to make it plain to those before whom we defend our faith and give a reasoned answer for the hope in us. Help us to make it plain that you have made foolish the wisdom of this world in order that they too might bow the heart and the mind, bow the knee before you come into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. By your grace, we pray that you would enable us to cast down every high reasoning that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. That we would do this not with carnal weapons, and certainly not with weapons that have been forged by the sinful minds and hearts and desires of men. That we do it because we are committed to making every thought captive to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose precious name we pray. Amen.

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