Presuppositional Apologetics and World View Apologetics

1. Presuppositional ApologeticsandWorld View Apologetics John Oakes ARS 2015 ICEC York College, York, NE

2. Defending the Faith History and Archaeology How We Got the Bible (including response to form criticism, etc.) Science Contradictions in the Bible Creating Faith World View Prophecy Miracles/Resurrection Claims of Jesus Apologetic Strategies: John Oakes

3. Schools of Christian Apologetics • Classical Apologetics (two-step) • Emphasizes arguments for theism • Miracles make no sense unless prove God exists. • Rationalism • Thomas Aquinas, William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler • Evidential Apologetics (one-step) • Emphasizes history, prophecy, miracles, resurrection. • Habermas, McDowell, J P Moreland • Cumulative Case Apologetics • Like Evidential but makes legal-type arguments. What is the most reasonable conclusion, given the evidence? Feinberg, Strobel

4. Schools of Christian Apologetics • Presuppositional Apologetics (World View Apologetics) Cornelius Van Til, Greg Bahnsen • Reformed Epistemological Apologetics • It is rational to believe without evidence (induction). God revealed by experiencing him. • Fideism You just have to believe. Faith is a blind leap. Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth

5. Presuppositional Apologetics A type of World View Apologetics Chief proponents: Cornelius Van Til Dutch 1895-1987 Greg Bahnsen American 1948-1995 Argues for the rationality of the Christian World View but highly influenced by Calvinism/Reformed Theology

6. Augustinianism in Disguise Because of Original Sin/Total Depravity, the mind of the unbeliever is so depraved that no logical argument will be an effective means to create saving faith. Presuppositional Apologists, strongly emphasize the sovereignty of God (over and above his love, for example) The apologist’s method is to demand the unbeliever to accept by formal presupposition the Christian world view because only under the Christian World View does reality make sense.

7. Presuppositions of the Presuppositionalists Use Colossians 2:3-8 to demonstrate that every single thought of the non-believer is foolishness. Bahnsen: All wisdom and knowledge is deposited in the person of Christ—whether it be about the War of 1812, water’s chemical composition, the literature of Shakespeare or the laws of logic. Every academic pursuit and every thought must be related to Jesus Christ, for Jesus is the way the truth and the life.

8. Christianity Owns All Knowledge Bahnsen: “One must be presuppositionally committed to Christ in the world of thought… or else the persuasive argumentation of secular thought will delude him. Hence the Christian is obliged to presuppose the word of Christ in every area of knowledge; the alternative is delusion.” Michael A. Robinson: “Everything that opposes the truth of Christianity will be false. Everything.” Augustine: A man must believe in order to understand. Reason without conversion avails nothing.

9. The Foolish Unbeliever Van Til: “The struggle between Christian theism and its opponents covers the whole field of knowledge. Christian theism’s fundamental contention is just this, that nothing whatsoever can be known unless God can be and is known. We defeat the unbeliever in argument by walking away from the argument. “The fool-oriented question is to be put aside.” Use Proverbs 26:4-5 to show that our opponents are foolish and therefore we should not engage in arguments with them.

10. How to Do Apologetics? Bahnsen: “By attacking the unbeliever’s position at its foundation.” “The pseudo-wisdom of the world must be reduced to foolishness.” Robinson about the unbeliever: “He despises biblical morality and desires sin. He is an intellectual criminal because he is a moral criminal first.”

11. Important Terminology for Van Til and Bahnsen “The myth of neutrality” No common ground Antithesis

12. The Myth of Neutrality Van Til: “There is no neutral middle ground where the Christian and the unbeliever can agree.” Robinson: “The Christian who strives after neutrality in his thought… is reduced to apostate thought patterns and absorbed into the world of unbelief.” “Neutrality is nothing short of immorality.”

13. No Common Ground Robinson:“No demilitarized zone exists between the camp of unbelief and the forces obedient to Christ.” Bahnsen: “Any common ground is ‘owned’ by the believer. The best we can have is formal agreement.” Van Til: The only “common ground” is found in the sinner’s sense of deity that lies within because he/she was made in the image of God. (in other words, the only reason we agree is that they are unknowingly hijacking Christianity)

14. Points of Vulnerability (Bahnsen) 1. It is dogmatic and absolutistic. (His response: “It appears dogmatic and absolutistic because it is dogmatic and absolutistic”) 2. The presuppositionalist is claiming that non-believers know nothing. 3. The presuppositionalist argument would prevent any meaningful discussion with the unbeliever.

15. Conclusion We can agree with the presuppositional apologists that the Christian world view is the only one with a consistent rational basis, but to deny common ground to other world views is to speak untruthfully and to defeat our evangelism before it starts. Total depravity is not a good presupposition on which to build a Christian apologetic (and it also is not true).

16. B. Christianity: The Christian World View • One's world view is the perspective one uses to process and interpret information received about the world.  • James W. Sire put it this way, "A world view is a set of presuppositions (ie. assumptions) which we hold about the basic makeup of our world."  • James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door (InterVarsity Press, 1997) A Jain World View

17. A “Good” World View Defined A. It is true. It is consistent with reality. It is consistent with what we know to be true from experience. It works. B. It answers satisfactorily the questions people really want answered. What is the nature of external reality-the world around us? What is a human being? What happens to a person at death? Why is it possible for us to know anything at all? How do we know what is right and wrong? What is my purpose? What is the value of a human being? C. It causes those who hold to it to be better people than they would otherwise have been if they held to competing alternative world views.

18. Definitions • Animism: Anima = spirit. A religious system which includes the belief that spirits inhabit inanimate objects and phenomena. • Polytheism: Poly = many. A belief that the universe is governed by many gods. • Pantheism (monism): Pan = all. A belief that a spirit fills the universe. God is the universe, and we are part of God. • Panentheism: God is in everything (stoicism) • Dualism: A belief that the universe is governed by nearly equally matched forces of good and evil. (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Taoism)

19. Definitions (cont.) • Deism: A belief in a distant, uninvolved God who is creator, but does not interact with his creation. (Epicureanism) • Monotheism: A belief that the universe is created/governed by a single omnipotent/omniscient/omnipresent spiritual being.

20. Other World Views 1. Animism/Polytheism 2. Pantheism 3. Dualism 4. Materialism 5. Deism 6. Theism

21. The Bible and Other World Views • If Genesis 1:1 is true, then animism, polytheism, pantheism, dualism, naturalism, deism, postmodernism and every other ism is false. • Conflicting world views cannot be accommodated with one another. Biblical theism is incompatible with all these other world views.

22. Hindu World View • Maya. The physical world is an illusion. • Brahman. Universal soul. • The goal: Nirvana; oneness with the universal soul which is within yourself. • The Hindu world view has man looking inward, not outward.

23. The Hindu World View  “There is no holy life. There is no war between good and evil. There is no sin and no redemption. None of these things matter to the real you. But they all matter hugely to the false you, the one who believes in the separate self. You have tried to take your separate self, with all its loneliness and anxiety and pride, to the door of enlightenment. But it will never go through, because it is a ghost.” ―Deepak Chopra

24. Hinduism and Time • Time is cyclic. There is a “wheel of time.” • World is cyclically created by Brahma, sustained by Vishnu and destroyed by Shiva. • Creative/destructive cycles called Yugas

25. Hindism and Time (cont) • One full cycle = 100 “Brahma years” 311 trillion years. • Then Brahma himself dies and is reborn

26. Hindu Cosmology • Many different levels of heavens/worlds/hells • These levels are horizontal (flat) • The physical world is illusory and it is evil • Lower levels are even more evil than ours

28. Angkor Wat: Mount Meru

29. Is The Hindu World View a Good One? • Is it true? • Hindu cosmology (cycles of creation, destruction and rebirth, eternal universe) is patently false. • The physical world is real and it is good. • Evil is NOT an illusion • Does it answer the important questions? • It does better than postmodernism or naturalism! • Purpose: To cease to exist.

30. Is Hinduism/Pantheism a Good World View? Does accepting this world view make one a better person? Better than naturalism. Self-focus and dispassion are not helpful. Suffering is not real. Christian groups do the majority of benevolent work in India Evil is not real. What is the effect of this belief?

31. The Buddhist World View The Four Noble Truths: Suffering is not getting what one wants. The cause of suffering is desire which leads to rebirth. The way to end suffering is to end desire. The way to the end of desire and of suffering is the eight-fold path.

32. The eight-fold path to bodhi/dharma/nirvana/lack of suffering • Right viewpoint (the four noble truths). • Right values. • Right speech. • Right actions. • Right livelihood • Right effort • Right mindfulness • Right meditation • Hard to argue with these values.

33. Other Buddhist Ideas Buddha claimed to be agnostic, but his world view was clearly pantheistic. Physical things are illusion. Evil is not real.

34. Buddhist Cosmology • Like Jaina, Hinduism, a vertical cosmology, with multiple levels/earths/heavens/lokahs • 31 planes of existence, each with 3 realms. • Higher ones more blissful, lower ones more like hell. • Endless cycle of time Cosmic wheel.

35. Buddhist Cosmology

36. Borodbur in Indonesia: A Buddhist concept of the world

37. Is The Buddhist World View a Good One? Is Buddhist Cosmology true? Is matter illusion? Purpose of life: To lose oneself and to become dispassionate. A better person? Christians do a majority of the benevolent work in Buddhist countries.

38. Islamic Worldview: Monotheistic, of course God is very distant from mankind In Islam, Allah determines everything, even who will choose to follow him. Sura 2:142, 6:39 6:125 Inshallah God willing. It is God’s will that people suffer. .

39. Islamic Theology “Surely good deeds take away evil deeds” (11:114). Salvation by own effort (40:9, 39:61, 7:43) Charity atones for sins (2:271,277) • Earn grace. • Earn favor of Allah. • Earn salvation. • Earn paradise.

40. Salvation by own effort (40:9, 39:61, 7:43) Charity atones for sins (2:271,277) • Earn grace. • Earn favor of Allah. • Earn salvation. • Earn paradise.

41. Sura 23:102-103 Those whose balance of good deeds is heavy, they will be successful. But those whose balance is light will be those who have lost their souls

42. Islam: Salvation is earned through the efforts of those who were pre-selected by Allah to inhabit a very sensual paradise. Christianity: Salvation is granted by the grace of a loving God to those who, through faith and repentance and baptism accept that love.

43. A Question: Who reaches out to whom?

44. Initiative Human approach Truth God God Mankind Mankind

45. Works Salvation: Man reaches out to God. Islam Hinduism Jaina Sikkhism Gnosticism New Age Buddhism? Salvation by Grace: God reaches out to man. Judaism Christianity

46. The 5 Pillars of Islam • Recite the profession of faith: “There is no God but Allah, Mohammed is his prophet.” • Pray five times a day • Pay the tax for the poor • Fast during Ramadan • Do the Hajj (the pilgrimage)

47. Is the Islamic World View a Good One? Is it true? Like Christianity, it is in reasonably good correspondence with reality. Does it give satisfactory answers to the important questions? Better that pantheism, dualism, naturalism… Does it make one better than other world views? Alms only for Muslims Fate/Predestination. God is the source of suffering and even evil.

48. The Christian World View 1. The physical world is: a. real b. created out of nothing (ex nihilo) and c. essentially good. 2. There exists an unseen spiritual reality which is not limited to or defined by the physical reality. Human beings have a spiritual aspect to their nature. 3. The creator of both the physical and spiritual realm is the God who reveals himself in the Bible. 4. Human beings have both a physical and a spiritual nature, The spiritual nature is more essential as it is eternal. 5. God is not easily defined but he can be characterized by certain qualities. God is a person. God is love, God is just, God is holy, God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.

49. The Christian World View (cont.) 6. Although all God’s creation, including the physical world is good, evil does exist. Such evil is the result of freedom of will given to created beings and their subsequent decision to use that freedom to rebel--to “sin” 7. Because of God’s justice and his holiness, those who choose to rebel against him will ultimately be judged and separated from God for eternity. 8. The solution to evil, to sin and its eternal consequences is provided by God through the atoning substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

50. The Biblical World View • The physical world is real and it is good. Genesis 1:31 • Only Islam agrees with this conclusion. • This world is not our home. • But, compassion… James 1:27 Micah 6:8 • Christian groups are responsible for virtually all the world’s efforts to deal with poverty and human suffering in general and to work for social justice.