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| And my point is... |
Rationales, reasons, evidences, presuppositions… How do we share, defend, articulate, and argue for the truth? To unbelievers? In what manner do we discuss these things with them?
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| What does Jane Austen have to do with Apologetics? |
In Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Anne Elliot expresses my mind exactly, “My idea of good company… is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company” (108). I’m crazy about a good discussion. Even with disagreement, there is something incredibly stimulating about it. And, understanding and knowing the other side of the debate is half the battle – in this a comparative worldview study is invaluable. In what rationales, presuppositions, & evidences does the world believe? On what do they base their lives? What are their flaws? How do you demolish them? How can you demonstrate the truth in this argument? What good evidences can you present? Can you challenge their presuppositions?
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| The Bible |
However, challenging an unbeliever’s presuppositions and breaking down his reasons can only take you so far. It is not persuasive arguments, eloquent orations, or an extensive worldview vocabulary that saves the day (as helpful as these are). Only the word of God can change a man’s heart. Only the scriptures can win the battle. Only the Holy Spirit, by means of the God breathed gospel can bring the dead man to new life.
Hence, while we practice the challenges and review the arguments (and there is great benefit in such endeavors), we would do well to remember what takes the day.
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Picture Credit: Google Image Search
Picture Credit: Google Image Search
While I think the value of Van Til and presupp apologetics is that both have reminded us, in contrast to past generations, that it is only the grace of God that will transform a heart, I think that the presuppositionalists have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Rational and evidential arguments are part of the necessary path to faith.
ReplyDeleteThe Reformers, and all subsequent generations of Calvinists up until the time of B. B. Warfield (the last great conservative at Princeton), emphasized, on the basis of Romans 2, that whereas the Jews learned God’s eternal moral law (Love God and love neighbor) from a special revelation through Moses, the Gentiles have learned this same law from nature. And, cf. Gal. 3-4, just as the Jews had the specially revealed Law as their pedagogue until Christ, the Gentiles have had the naturally revealed Law.
You and I realize that we need to submit to Christ only after we see that the Law cannot save us. The Law does not, itself, save, but it takes us to the place where the Gospel finally works on us. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus repeatedly emphasizes that the one who loves God much is the one who has had much forgiven of him. In a similar manner, said thinkers like Warfield, rational and evidential arguments do not, themselves, save us, but lead us to that place where we see that we cannot even perfectly serve the idolatrous “gods” we erect in the place of Yahweh. That is, the Law revealed in nature cannot save us.
Francis Schaeffer insisted that he was a presuppositionalist, insisted that he followed the Van Tilian program. But as the scholarship of Kim Riddlebarger has shown, in practice Schaeffer mixed rational and evidential arguments with presuppositional ones. In practice, Shaeffer discovered what Paul demonstrated on Mars Hill in Acts 17—that you have to get inside the unbeliever’s own false religion, and show how it testifies to the one true God.
And just as in Acts 17, not everyone will believe in response to natural-Law, rational and evidential arguments. Some will scoff. Some will put off learning the Gospel for later. And others will receive it on the spot. Van Til is right to remind us that, after we have identified the Athenians’ unknown god and cast him in the light of the Gospel, repentance is the sovereign gift of God. But “to whom little is forgiven, [the same] loveth little” (Luke 7:47). Without Law, the Gospel does not shine so bright.
I’m glad that the scholarship of men like VanDrunen is returning the OPC’s attention to the importance of the historic *Reformed* (rather than Roman Catholic) understanding of natural Law.