Always ready? | Where to begin with your apologetic.

Guest post by Bryan Lopez

“Being confident of these things, a truly Reformed apologetic must begin from the presupposition that the living and true, triune God speaks to him with absolute authority in infallible Scripture. His reasoning then finds its only legitimate function as a servant or tool of God’s word, rather than its judge. Following God’s Word, the Christian receptively reconstructs the created facts of the universe about him with a view toward both fulfilling the cultural mandate and being conformed to the image of his Savior by the power of Christ’s Spirit; hereby he glorifies God and enjoys Him forever. Thus, the apologetic task will consist, not of externally verifying the Christian presupposition but, of applying it by (1) bringing God’s truth and command to bear upon the lives of unbelievers, appealing to the image of God in them (distinguishing between present remnants of man’s orignal nature and the ever-present nature of fallen man), pointing out that every fact of the world bears witness to God, and (2) doing an internal critique of the non-Christian’s system, calling down its idols, and pointing out the absolute necessity of Christian presuppositions if logic, factuality, history, science, and morality are to have any meaning, validity, and application at all. The Christian apologetic will not concede intellectual ground to Christianity’s cultured despisers or allow them to exploit theorethical foundations to which they have no legitimate claim without depending on the Christian faith. Thus, part of the Christian’s reasoned defense of the faith will be an aggressive offense. Not like the fool who built his house upon the sand, the Christian apologist must, in love for Christ, found his whole life, including apologetical reasoning, upon the solid rock of Christ’s Word. In accordance with this the apologist seeks the repentance of the sinner and does not encourage his continued use of hostile, autonomous reason in judgment over God’s Word. We seek a God-controlled man, not a man-controlled God."

 (Greg Bahnsen, Presuppositional Apologetics, Page 6-7)

Look! The Door Is UnLocked!

Michael Patton writes:

I often play this game with my kids that drives them crazy. Sitting in the room, with no one but us, while they are not looking I will slap them on the rear and act like I did not do it. They turn and say, “Daddy! I know you did that.” I say, “I did not.” ”Then who did it?” they respond (thinking they have settled the issue with this one question). I say, “A guy ran into the front door and slapped them and then ran out.” They look at me like I am crazy. “Look!” I respond to their skepticism, “The door is not locked. It is obvious that someone could have come in since the door is not locked.” Upon further looks of skepticism, I have them go check the door to see if it is locked or not. Once they check and see it is unlocked, I have won the day. I have poked a hole and their certainty and even caused them to confirm it. No longer possessing the indubitability that I have required for their epistemic verification, they now have lost poise in their former confidence. In other words, I tricked them into thinking that one has to be absolutely certain about something before it can be believed.

Ideas about the value of certainty is currently on the theological stage of debate. With the postmodern push toward perpetual skepticism that gives way to necessary compromise and a redefining of tolerance, along with many in the emerging church responding to the postmodern world by appealing to a fidist approach to the faith (ignore the evidence, just believe), Evangelicals are found scratching their heads, wondering why we are checking the door to see if it is locked.

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