A Debate - Presuppositional vs. Classical Apologetics: Which Method is Best?
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- This debate on the Sin Boldly Radio Program (you can link to it from www.felchouston.org) features Houston apologist Eric Hernandez and Reformed Baptist Jason Wang. It is an introduction to the reasons that various apologetic methods are employed.
Jason’s opening shows he doesn’t understand what the actual issue is in this debate (which is the case for most presuppositionatlists). They argue it’s a consequence of total depravity which is false - total depravity never removes the ability of man to understand logical progression. In order for the presuppositionalists' objections to be true they actually have to assume general revelation and the use of reason do not point to the one true and living God (hence the charge of deism) ironically subtly denying general revelation and validating man’s sinful use of reason apart from God. We present God’s truth *not* in order to give them the option to reject it (which would be a sinful putting of God on trial like Eve did) but in order to tear down their excuses and show that accepting God’s truth is the only logical and reasonable thing to do. They are capable of reasoning in this way otherwise speaking to them (which assumes they’re capable of reason) would be pointless though we know morally they are incapable of believing this truth without the Holy Spirit. YES, we want me to *judge* God’s truth as truth because they can’t be saved without holding this judgment for themselves.
The idea that classical apologetics stood behind the first sin is so utterly absurd. Does he really believe Eve was using reason *rightly* by considering the serpent’s words over God’s? Of course she was not. And so classical apologetics would actually correct such thinking pointing out God created and provided every need for you Eve, do you really think this serpent has your best interest at heart? It is *irrational* for you to listen to him. And classical apologetics would move us itself beyond classical apologetics to point out the simple truth that duty and love to God demand that you obey him. It doesn’t deny that the Christian must have God’s Word as foundational, it simply allows for other rational arguments in support of it to give even greater weight and even further press biblical duty. Lesser motivations are still valid motivations. And in fact in evangelizing to those who don’t know the Bible, it’s absolutely vital to give extra biblical motivations to begin with then move into Scripture and the gospel - exactly as Paul did in Acts 17. Presuppositionalists cut off their own legs by denying this.
It's a shame Eric rejects Calvinism and he's also wrong about its implications, sadly. But he did a good job otherwise.
To me it seems there is an unjustified assumption: Who says that for the unbeliever who needs to hear an apologetic defense that the foundational matter is a matter of existence of God? It makes a false assumption that the bedrock of apologetics is anti-atheism, whereas prior to 400 years ago very few on earth would have been avowed atheists and that definition would have made non-sense of apologetics at the time. It seems to me that current apologetics discourse has very much downplayed what you might call inter-religious apologetics (not to be confused with interfaith dialogue) where apologetics is spoken to those who hold another faith that assumes the existence of God or gods and the apologetic needs to be effective in that realm. Only if you have a foundation that factors that in can I see an apologetic method working. Atheism, as prominent as it is today in Westernized circles, is an aberration and I feel is a sub-issue to a larger worldview difference. Framing apologetics as a matter of God's existence (whether by assuming it: presup; or trying to prove it: classical) I think grossly misses the point.
I think God's existence SHOULD be assumed, yet God's existence is not the most important part but rather his character and attributes, which determines how God interacts with the world and creation. And you can't know that without revelation, which also implies the existence of a kind of God that could have hid himself from all reason (proving reason is not supreme nor equal with God's mind) but chose to reveal himself - thus anything actually discovered with the human mind was a consequence of God making it that way such that it could be discovered.
1:00:00 PA doesn't state that we can't only know propositions that are in the bible (perhaps Clark would do, but since it is Vantillianism discussed here, that is not a valid point).
PA states that we can't know things autonomously. Thus, we as humans are dependent on a revelational epistemology. So, we can only know things that are stated in the bible in principle. It has long been acknowledged even by the reformer that deduced knowledge can be knowledge too.
In order to know anything we first must know if our senses and reasoning work properly. We can only know this out of Gods revelation. This is why the bible is the principium cognoscendi. I am suprised by the way that Hernandez don't know this. This is basic.
At 40:00 Hernandez is making the claim that only in ontology God has to come first, so to speak. In epistemology this would be different.
However, there is a different between the temporal and the logical order in epistemology. Nobody would deny that men reason temporally prior to acknowledge God. But on the logical level God has to come first bevertheless.
It is not the material aspect of reasoning that it attacked by the PA, but the formal. Put in other words: The PA doesnt' think that the unbeliever doesn't reason, but that the unbeliever can't account for reasoning without God.
Both views recognize the unbeliever can't account for reasoning without God. The difference comes from the reaction to this truth. The presupppositionalist - consistently - simply argues you know this to be true because you're using reason therefore my job here is done (i.e., PA can give no real defense; it's position is, again taken consistently, the denial of the need for defense, aka, apologetics). While the classicalist can actually reason with the unbeliever to show him how unreasonable he is being by denying God.
Good grief. Jason at 23:00 actually thinks Classical Apologetics is the foundation of the first sin? That it has 'hijacked' apologetics in the modern age? These guys come out of nowhere 70 years ago and are trying to rewrite all of Biblical and extra-Biblical history. To my knowledge ALL apologists were Classical and Evidential right up until quite recently. And no one thought Eve's sin was doubt. It was disobedience.
Amen!