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11. PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETICS
How to Uncover Basic Flaws and Hidden Lies in Attacks against the Christian Faith
PART 3 - THE METHOD OF PRESUPPOSOTIONAL APOLOGETICS
21. Summary of the Method of Apologetics*
* Based on two lecture series by Greg Bahnsen: “Biblical introduction of apologetics” and “Seminary Course in Apologetics”
At this point, let’s just stop and summarize our main points so far.
1. The controversy between the believer and unbeliever is in principle an antithesis between two complete systems of thought involving ultimate commitments and assumptions.
2. Even laws of thought and method, along with factual evidence, will be accepted and evaluated in light of one’s governing presuppositions.
3. All chains of argumentation over ultimacy trace back to and depend on starting points, which are taken to be self-evidencing; thus circularity in debate over ultimate authority will be unavoidable. However, not all circles are intelligible or valid.
4. Appeals to logic, fact, and personality may be necessary, but they are not apologetically adequate; what is needed is not piece-meal replies, probabilities, or isolated evidences but rather an attack on the underlying presuppositions of the unbeliever’s system of thought.
5. An unbeliever’s way of thinking is characterized as follows:
a. By nature the unbeliever is an image of God and, therefore, inescapably religious; their heart testifies continually, as does also the clear revelation of God around them, to God’s existence and character.
b. An unbeliever exchanges the truth for a lie. They are fools who refuse to ground their thinking in reverence for the Lord.
c. Because they delight not in understanding but in choosing to serve the creature rather than the Creator, they are self-confidently committed to their own ways of thought; being convinced that they cannot be fundamentally wrong, they flaunt perverse thinking and challenge the self-attesting word of God.
d. Consequently, an unbeliever’s thinking results in ignorance; in their darkened futile mind, they actually hate knowledge and the “knowledge” they gain is actually false.
e. To the extent that unbelievers actually know anything, it is due to their unacknowledged dependence upon the suppressed truth of God. This renders the unbeliever intellectually schizophrenic by their espoused way of thinking, they actually oppose themselves, and show a need for a radical “change of mind” (repentance) unto a genuine knowledge of the truth.
f. The unbeliever’s ignorance is culpable because they are without excuse for their rebellion against God’s revelation; hence they are “without an apologetic”. Their unbelief does not stem from a lack of factual evidence but from their refusal to submit to the authoritative Word of God as the foundation of their thinking.