A lecture given by TE Grover Gunn on March 11, 1997, at the apologetics conference sponsored by Christ Presbyterian Church in Elkton, Maryland. All Bible quotations are from the New King James Version unless otherwise noted.C.H. Spurgeon in his famous sermon "Free Will, A Slave" makes the statement:
"If a man talks very slowly, he may speak in a fine manner; but when he comes to talk fast, the old brogue of his country, where he was born, slips out."For example, some hymns by Charles and John Wesley sound like they were written by a Calvinist. The same is probably also true of some of their sermons. It is when they are talking slowly and trying to write a consistent work of theology that their Arminianism becomes most evident.
I would guess that the same thing often happens in apologetics with regard to evidentialists and presuppositionalists. Some godly and learned men believe in evidentialistic apologetics. I would probably agree with many of their efforts to defend the faith in the context of evangelism. I would probably be able to give a hearty "Amen" to many of their sermons. It is when we debate each other or when we engage in our more detailed explanations of our apologetic that our differences become most evident.
THE TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT
I want today to look at the basic difference between how a presuppositionalist defends the faith and how an evidentialist defends the faith. I will start by looking at how we use the transcendental argument.
The phrase "the transcendental argument" sounds intimidating, but it is really a simple concept. At times we accept something, not because we can directly prove it, but because of "the impossibility of the contrary." We cannot prove a certain position, but we can show that the inevitable consequences of rejecting that position are simply unthinkable. The price of rejection is beyond any possibility of payment.
There are two children's books which I believe are good examples of a limited use of the transcendental argument. They are Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Mr. Carroll was a lecturer in mathematics at Oxford back in the nineteenth century, and he was author of the book Symbolic Logic. In his two children's books, this scholarly logician created a world where absurdity reigns. Here's a short selection from Alice in Wonderland:
Alice ... tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?'
"In THAT direction," the [Cheshire] Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
And here is a short selection from Through the Looking Glass:
Alice laughed. "There's not use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the [White] Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ..."
Here is a fantasy world where everyone is mad and where people believe impossible things. One thing we soon learn when we read these two books is that living in a world where absurdity reigns would be impossibly frustrating. This is a transcendental argument for the validity of logic. You cannot use logic to directly prove logic, but you can show the impossibility of an absurd world.
The transcendental argument is used to prove foundational presuppositions. Every system of thought goes back to some foundational axiomatic truths that are self-evident and self-authenticating. Dr. Greg Bahnsen stated it this way:"... every argument chain must end in a self-authenticating starting point; every world view has its unquestioned and unquestionable assumptions, its primitive commitments."1The only other alternative is to have an infinite regress: A is implied by B, B is implied by C, C is implied by D, and so on and so on ad infinitum.
Presuppositionalism does not use the transcendental argument to prove secondary axioms such as the validity of logic. Presuppositionalism uses the transcendental argument to prove what is truly life's most ultimate axiom. According to presuppositionalism, if Christianity is not true, then there is no possible proof of anything. Nothing can be known with any certainty unless the living and true God can be known.
The Greek scientist Archimedes said, "Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I can move the world." It doesn't matter how long your lever is, you can't move anything without a solid place to plant your lever's fulcrum. Similarly, it doesn't matter how sophisticated your world view is, you can't prove anything unless you start with at least one axiomatic, self-evident, self-authenticating truth. You must have a solid place upon which to stand or else you are lost is a world of relativism and flux.
THE WORLD VIEW SCALES
Let's change our metaphor now. We've compared a world view to a fulcrum and lever. Let's now compare it to a set of scales, a device for weighing. A world view is like a set of scales in that you use your world view to evaluate truth claims. You use your world view to weigh evidence. There is, however, one thing you cannot weigh in your scales, and that is the scales themselves. To validate the scales in which you weigh everything else, you need a more subtle approach, an indirect approach. You need the transcendental argument.
Here's the solution. You get the official Bureau of Standards to send you a set of authenticated weights with the official weight stamped on each unit. You take these and weigh them on one scale. According to that scale, your five pound weight is heavier than your ten pound weight. You must reject that scale as defective because of the impossibility of the contrary. If that scale is not defective, then five pounds weighs more than ten pounds, and that's impossible. That scale is defective because of the impossibility of the contrary.
You try another set of scales, and according to it, all your authenticated weights weigh exactly what is stamped on them. Either that set of scales is correct, or all your official, authenticated weights have the wrong weight stamped on them. Since that is impossible, unthinkable, out of the question, that set of scales must be correct. You have authenticated your scales using the transcendental argument. You have demonstrated the scales to be accurate because of the impossibility of the contrary.
Now for this to work, you have to have that set of those official, authenticated weights with the exact weight stamped on each unit. You need something as an indicator of impossibility. Now in terms of our world view, do we have anything like that? Yes, we do. God gave each us a set of authenticated, official weights with the exact weight stamped on each unit when he created us in His own image.
THE IMAGE OF GOD
What does it mean to be created in the image of God? Negatively, man's creation in the image of God does not mean that God has a literal body after which He patterned the human body. Almost no one teaches this except the Mormons. According to the Mormon scripture Doctrine and Covenants, "The Father has a body of flesh and bone as tangible as man's." This bizarre Mormon teaching is related to their teaching that God the Father is an exalted finite man.
The Bible teaches that God is a Spirit (John 4:24) and that spirits do not have material bodies (Luke 24:39). During the Old Testament, God at times appeared to men in bodily forms (cf. Genesis 18:2,13); these, however, were veiled manifestations, revelations in forms accessible to finite man. No man has ever actually seen God in a direct sense (John 1:18; 1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16; Exodus 33:20).
The Bible also speaks of God in terms of human body parts, but these are figures of speech. For example, God's speaking to Moses face to face was a figure for God's speaking to Moses with the same personal intimacy with which a man speaks to a friend (Exodus 33:11,20). The fingers of God refer to God's creative ability (Psalm 8:3), and the arm of the Lord refers to God's power to save (Deut. 4:34). God no more has literal fingers and arms than He has literal wings and feathers (Psalm 91:4). Man's claim to uniqueness is his being created in God's image (Genesis 1:27-28; Psalm 8). To say that this refers merely to the form of man's physical body is to say that man's uniqueness in creation is relative and that animals like the ape with physical forms similar to man's are created nearly in God's image.
The image of God in man is not found in man's physical form, and there are certain attributes of God that cannot be reflected in man or any other element of created reality. Only God is eternal and without any beginning in time. Only God is a non-derived, non-created being. The image of God in man must refer to nonmaterial characteristics of man where the finite creature can reflect the infinite Creator.
The New Testament teaches that in regeneration man is renewed "according to the image of Him who created him" in knowledge, righteousness and holiness (Col. 3:10 & Eph. 4:24). Thus man as a rational and spiritual creature upon whose heart is written the law of God reflects the Person of God. One can think of many other areas where man reflects certain divine attributes. Man is a creature of language, and God is a God who speaks. God, while not subject to irrational passions, displays love, anger and many other emotions which are reflected in human experience. God creates, and man is creative; God is Lord, and man was given dominion over the earth; God judges and rules, and man judges and rules. God has a will, and man has a will; God has plans, and men have their plans. God imputes value to things ("God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good"), and man is an economic creature. God experiences personal relationships within the Triune Godhead, and man is a social creature who exists both in diversity as individuals and in unity as a race. This social aspect of man is most basically expressed in the marriage relationship: ". . . God said, Let US make man in OUR image, . . . So God created man in His own image; . . . male and female He created them."
In short, man's creation in the image of God means that Adam was created like the Creator in every way it was possible for a finite, limited creature to be like the eternal Creator God. That includes our rationality. Rationality is a very important aspect of the divine image within us, but the image of God is not limited to rationality. There are many other innate predispositions and abilities and instincts and conceptions that are the stamp of the divine image upon the very core of our being. The French mathematician, scientist and theologian Pascal said, "We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart... The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."2
The image of God is complex, and people are different. The question, "What will touch and arouse the divine image in that particular person?" is similar to the question, "What would cause that particular person to laugh?" The good apologist develops the art of probing human hearts to answer that first question. Also involved is a divinely given gift of intuition, and the Holy Spirit has distributed the gifts as He wills.
What about the effect of the fall, especially the noetic effects of sin; that is, the effects of sin upon the way we think?
THE NOETIC EFFECTS OF SIN
The Bible teaches that fallen man in his natural state is at enmity against God and cannot please Him (Romans 8:7-8). He does not seek after God and he does not do good (Romans 3:11-12). He has gone astray and has turned to his own way (Isaiah 53:6). Apart from the gift of God's regenerating grace, he is morally unable to come to Christ in saving faith (John 6:65; 10:26; 12:39-40). Emotionally, he loves moral darkness (John 3:19) and the things of Satan (John 8:44), and he hates God's light (John 3:20). Intellectually, the things of God are foolishness to him (1 Corinthians 2:14) and his understanding is darkened (Ephesians 4:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:4; John 8:43,47). Volitionally, he has been taken captive by the devil to do his will (2 Timothy 2:26; John 8:44). In regard to his total being, he is spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1; John 5:25).
Humanity was created in God's image, that image was shattered by the fall, but that image was not obliterated. It remains because creation in the image of God is the distinctive defining characteristic of humanity. It still exists deep within the heart of fallen man as a testimony to God's truth. This inner voice does not have the power to raise fallen man from his state of spiritual death, but it is a sufficient inner testimony to hold fallen man accountable for his sin on judgment day. Perhaps the clearest passage on this is Romans 2:11-16. Every person has "the work of the law written in [his heart], [his] conscience also bearing witness."
DIVINE FINGERPRINTS
We have discussed the inner stamped weights which God has given us. There are also external stamped weights, and that is the whole of creation which surrounds us. Creation is the work of God's fingers (Psalm 8:3). The whole world is pulsating with the revelation of God; there is no escaping it. Knowledge of the true and living God bombards fallen man (Psalm 19:1-2).
In order to avoid these external stamped weights, fallen man has to project a fantasy world. I believe a science fiction series such as Star Trek, The Next Generation is an interesting commentary on this fantasy world. We have Mr. Data, a sophisticated robot who (notice I said, "who") is practically human. Since humans are only complex chemical machines, a computer such as Mr. Data must be given as much respect and granted as much dignity. In the episode "The Measure of a Man," Captain Picard successfully defends Mr. Data in court from an official attempt to disassemble him for research purposes by arguing that Mr. Data has "sentience," the capacity for sensation.
In the episode "Silicon Avatar," the Crystalline Entity is a huge primitive life form which has devoured all life, including human life, on many planets. Yet Captain Pichard opposes its destruction unless absolutely necessary. After all, who are we to judge another life form that is just innocently following its instincts?
The evolutionary origin of species is obvious in this fantasy series. There are multitudes of planets with multitudes of life forms. There are humans, Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, and other species. Despite all their diversity, it is curious that all these evolved species have two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears -- a basically human structure. Might that be some evidence of a common Creator, a master Designer? How could the randomness of chance account for such substantial commonality? One episode, "The Chase," was devoted to answering these questions. It turns out that eons before, an intellegent species from the planet where life first evolved distributed "seed codes" in "the primordial oceans of many worlds" to direct their evolution toward a certain physical form. That episode explained the common design that remains evident in spite of the bizarre diversity among species such as humans, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardacions. We are thus assured that we have no need to assume a Creator. Also, the studio has no need to try to portray characters with significantly non-human body structure, which would probably be very inconvenient and expensive.
We can maintain our fantasy to a degree in the world of theater, but it is more difficult in the more mundane world of our daily existence. The stamped weights are out there, and they constantly chant their message: "God exists! Praise His name!"
PULLING DOWN STRONGHOLDS
(2 Corinthians 10:4)Let's review for a moment. We have the set of scales. That is a person's world view, his basic understanding of reality which he uses to measure truth claims. We also have the set of official weights with the weight stamped on each unit. There are internal stamped weights, the image of God bearing testimony deep inside the heart of every man. There are also external stamped weights, the whole of creation covered with divine fingerprints.
Now what we do in apologetics is to challenge people to weigh the basic issues of life on the scale of their world view. We challenge them to be honest in acknowledging the logical and consistent implications of their view of reality. We challenge them to compare these readings with what they know to be true in their heart of hearts, even if they will not consciously admit it. Using this method, we bring to bear upon their consciences the challenge implicit in Paul's rhetorical question, "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" (1 Corinthians 1:20).
Let us say that we are dealing with someone who rejects God and believes in naturalism. The material world has always existed and is all that there is. There is no immaterial reality such as the human spirit or God. The human mind is nothing but the chemical reactions of the human brain. As one writer put it, "the brain secretes thoughts as the liver secretes bile." Human beings are evolutionally advanced animals or complex chemical machines. Death is the end of all personal existence. History has no meaning or purpose or goal.
MORALITY
Ask such a person to weigh morality on their scales. What do the scales say? Morality is nothing but a human convention based on majority opinion. Human sacrifice, for example, is immoral in our culture at the present time. It was not immoral in Aztec society. It may not be immoral in our society in the future.
If there is no reality beyond the material world of energy and matter, then any sense of morality which we may have is nothing but a naive fantasy and illusion. Deny God and all that remains of ethics is varying opinions and alternate lifestyles and cultural conventions. In such a world, who are we to impose our values upon others such as the Nazis?
How does the secularist avoid the conclusion of Alexander Pope's poem Essay on Man, "One truth is clear, whatever is, is right"? That is what the world's scales say, if we will but read them honestly. Deep inside every person, an alarm goes off. Something shouts out, "That's unthinkable!" Charles Dickens made a comment about "the precept, that 'Whatever is is right'" in his novel A Tale of Two Cities. He referred to it as "an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that was, was wrong." This "aphorism" is sometimes called the naturalistic fallacy. It is what the secularist scales say about morality, but the human heart protests that such a morality is itself immoral.
HUMAN DIGNITY
What about the question of human dignity? Human life is sacred only because humanity is created in the image of God. Deny God, and there is nothing unique or special about human life. Human suffering becomes only a series of biochemical stimuli in a meaningless world. If the human race is nothing but an evolutionary fluke that arose from a primordial soup, if the human being is only a sophisticated biological organism, then killing a human belongs in a category with slaughtering a cow and felling a tree. One day the sun will burn out, all self-conscious and personal life will be extinct, and not even the memory of humanity will survive.
SCIENCE
What about science? The world says that all significant knowledge about the objective world is empirical in nature; that is, based on the appearance of things through sense experience. That very statement, however, is self-contradictory because it is not the result of empirical testing and experience. Instead it is a statement of faith, a religious commitment which is the creed of scientism.
People so often fail to notice how much they have assumed as a faith commitment as opposed to what they have proved through scientific tests. How can finite humanity ever prove the uniformity of nature? How can humanity know that "nature" behaves the same out in the unexplored recesses of space, or even in the unexplored regions of planet earth? How can science prove that "nature" will behave the same tomorrow as it behaves today? The fact that the sun has arisen in the east every day for millennia is no proof that it will do so tomorrow. If there is no knowledge beyond what finite humanity is able to discover on its own, then there is no adequate basis for science.
SOLIPSISM
Are you familiar with solipsism? This is the world view which says that I alone exist. Everything else is a projection of my mind. How can you logically refute that? No one can get beyond their sense perceptions to verify the existence of something out there that is more than a projected appearance. We cannot logically disprove solipsism, but very few people have ever accepted it. Something deep inside rebels against the idea. We are created in the image of the triune God, and therefore we are social creatures. We cannot accept the idea that we are the only personal being in existence, that we are in reality solitary and isolated, that our contact with other personal beings is all an illusion based on self-deception.
Bertrand Russell stated that he had once received a letter from the eminent logician, the late Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist and was surprised nobody else was. Russell remarked, "coming from a logician, this surprise surprised me."3 Do you see the contradiction between this woman's heart and head? In her head, she believed that she alone existed. In her heart, she desired others to agree with her and to share her philosophy.
We could go on and on and on. Weigh every aspect of life on the scales of secular atheism or some similar world view, and the readings on the scale will contradict those test weights which God has implanted in the human heart and in the creation.
DISHONEST SCALES
One has to put pressure on the non-Christian to read his scales honestly. He has a tendency to be like the butcher who puts his thumb on the scale to make the meat he is selling cost more. The Bible condemns dishonest scales (Deuteronomy 25:13-16), and we should also.
The non-Christian at times wants to believe that his world view scales register the weight which that testimony deep in his heart says it should register. Presuppositionalists call this "operating on borrowed capital." The atheist rejects God, but he wants to believe that he nevertheless has a consistent basis for morality and aesthetics and logic and science. The presuppositionalist pressures the non-Christian to read his scales honestly. Apart from a belief in the true and living God who is revealed in Scripture, a person does not have even a consistent basis for making a simple statement of predication such as "I exist" or "1 + 1 = 2." Belief in the God of the Bible is the only possible consistent "precondition for intelligible experience and meaningful thought."4
TAKING EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE
(2 Corinthians 10:5)The next step is to weigh the evidence on our scale, which is the Christian world view. We believe that the Bible is self-authenticating truth. It is our ultimate axiom. We believe the true and the living God has revealed Himself in the Scriptures, and that is the essence of our world view. In this case, the consistent reading of the scales agrees with the testimony of the inscribed weights deep in our heart of hearts. Let's look at some examples.
KNOWLEDGE
Let's consider the issue of knowledge. How can we know anything with any certainty? The answer is that God can have knowledge with an absolute certainty, and God has spoken to us.
God has a certainty that is beyond anything we can attain. God made everything, God knows every fact, God is in control of every development, God is everywhere in the fullness of His being, and God knows the past, present and future simultaneously. God is able to evaluate and analyze each individual fact in the light of His comprehensive knowledge of all current facts, all past influences, all future developments and all possible contingencies.
We know so few of the facts, and the one fact we do not know can change our understanding of all the other facts. I remember an episode from the TV show The Twilight Zone from when I was a child. It was about some space aliens who visited earth. People were quite alarmed, but these creatures from space assured everyone that there was nothing to fear. They had come on a mission of mercy to primitive earth, which they viewed as a "third world" planet. They even had a missions manual entitled "To Serve Mankind."
With their advanced technology, these aliens began their impressive work of service. They enabled farmers to produce unprecedented harvests, they prevented natural calamities, they healed incurable diseases. These visitors from space soon won the trust of the world. Then some began to ask about the visitors' home planet, and the aliens began offering tours to whomever wanted to go. Most who went chose not to return to primitive earth. The main character of the story, one of the few remaining skeptics, finally decided to go on one of these intergalactic tours. Just as he was entering the spaceship, his girlfriend shouted to him from the crowd below. "Stop!" she cried, "Don't go! We've deciphered their language. The book "To Serve Mankind" ... it's a cookbook!"
All of this is to illustrate one point: you don't know anything for certain unless you know everything. For the one thing you don't know can change the meaning of everything else. As Christians who accept the Bible, we know the One who possesses absolutely certain knowledge, and He has spoken to us.
LOVE
Let's weigh love on the scale of our world view. In our world view, the most ultimate reality is not an impersonal universe, it is the triune God of Scripture. There is but one true God, but He exists in three Persons. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each fully God and thus perfectly suited as intimate companions for each other. They are an "I" and a "You" and a "He" within the one being of the one true God. They have loved each other, communicated with each other, and had fellowship with each other from eternity past. In our system, personal love is consistent with, not contrary to, the most ultimate reality.
MORALITY AND AESTHETICS
Christians don't have to argue for the existence of some abstract, impersonal principle of morality or beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when that beholder is God, it is an absolute aesthetic standard rooted, not in an abstraction, but in the personal taste of an absolute and infinite Person. Likewise, morality exits only as a personal opinion of what is right, but when that opinion is God's opinion, it is an absolute moral standard rooted, not in an abstraction, but in the holy character of an absolute and infinite Person. Because we believe in God, we have a consistent basis for believing that there is an absolute and universal moral ought. Because we believe in God, we have a consistent basis for believing that there is absolute and universal standard of aesthetics.
SCIENCE
God took a world that was without form (chaotic) and void (lifeless) and then transformed it into an ordered cosmos teeming with life. This fact is the basis for the orderliness in nature that is the prerequisite for science to work.
David Hume, the philosophical skeptic, observed that the simple fact that we have seen the sun rise day after day in no way guarantees that it will rise tomorrow. In terms of his world view, Mr. Hume was correct. In contrast, the Christian knows that God made this world as an orderly and predictable creation. He also knows that God upholds His creation with the hand of providence. These two facts are the Christian's guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow.
The fact that there is a design in creation confirms our belief in an intelligent Designer. We are learning more and more about the complexity of life. And even on a microscopic level, many of the extremely complex molecular structures of living matter are like little machines that are useless except in their final, complex form. There is no possibility of their having obtained complexity through gradual improvements because they are useless in less complex stages. They are like the mousetrap. You can't use the wooden base to catch a few mice and then add the spring and catch a few more. You can't catch any mice with a mousetrap until all the parts are present and assembled in their proper working relationship. This "irreducible complexity" of the building blocks of life even on the microscopic level of molecules is consistent with and confirms our belief in God.5
HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
We do have historical evidences for the proof of Christianity: the resurrection of Christ, the conversion of the apostle Paul, the fulfillment of ancient prophecies. We weight these on our scale, and they confirm its accuracy in a special way. I will not cover these historical evidences in detail here because there are so many apologetic works which discuss these so thoroughly. I will note their special importance. Christianity is not a religion rooted in human philosophical speculation. It is a religion rooted in historical events which actually occurred.
We could go on and on and on. We weigh every conceivable area of life, every possible issue of any significance. On the scales of unbelief, if we will read the scales with consistency and honesty, something is wrong. Issues that should carry great weight have no weight at all on the scales of unbelief. Yet the readings on the scales of belief are consistent with what we know to be true in our heart of hearts. Nevertheless, the world loves its skewed scales and will try to read them dishonestly before admitting that the scales themselves are the problem.
To use another metaphor, God has implanted a tuning fork deep within the heart of every human created in His image. When the message of the Bible goes forth, that tuning fork resonates and cries out, "This is truth! This is meaningful! This is light and life!" Of course, fallen humanity is deaf to this cry. The deafness is a self-imposed moral deafness for which one will rightly be held accountable. Only the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit can overcome this deafness.
EVIDENTIALISM
Evidentialists also use the transcendental argument, but they have a different ultimate presupposition which they view as self-attesting and self-evident:
- the validity of the law of non-contradiction.
- the validity of the law of causality.
- the basic reliability of sense experience.
These three principles have to be true because of the impossibility of the contrary. These are the assumptions necessary for life. Human logic is dependent on axiom one, and all scientific endeavors require axioms two and three.
The evidentialists says that both he and the non-Christian accept these three principles based on a transcendental argument. This is the common ground between the God-denying pagan and the Bible believing Christian. Using the tools provided by this area of agreement, the Christian can first prove the philosophical necessity of a divine being. Then using these same tools and the witness of the Bible as a historical book, the Christian can demonstrate the probable truth of Christianity.
There are two very basic things wrong with this.
- When you weigh the claims of God and Christ on those secular scales, the scales are going to register rejection.
We have first told the nonbeliever that he can basically trust himself as an independent thinker. We then hope to argue from there to the conclusion that the nonbeliever should rely wholly on the Lord instead of trusting himself, that he should submit to the Lord in all of life instead of being a "free thinker" You can't get from that point A to the desired point B.
Look at the price the evidentialist has had to pay to accept the non-Christian's scales as common ground. He has set aside the authoritative claims of God, Christ and Scripture. He has granted the hypothetical possibility of a world independent of God that can successfully function and be successfully understood in terms of the axioms of logic and science. He has conceded that man can successfully use logic and science to analyze and judge reality irrespective of the truth of Christianity.
When you weigh on these scales the Christ "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3), these scale are going to register rejection.
When you weigh on these scales the sovereign God of Scripture "for [whom] and through [whom] and to [whom] are all things" (Romans 11:36), these scales are going to register rejection.
When you weigh on these scales the Christ who "is before all things, and in [whom] all things consist" (Colossians 1:17), these scales are going to register rejection.
There is a frustrating futility in asking the non-Christian to weigh our evidence of his scales. We point out that every cause appears to have an effect, and we ask if the need for a final cause points to a Creator. We point out the intricate design of our world, and ask if such a design points to a Designer. If we found a watch in the woods, wouldn't we assume the existence of a watch maker? If we found a garden on an isolated island, wouldn't we assume that somewhere on that island lives a gardener? We put these questions on the world's scales, and what do they read? We immediately encounter problems because the very validity of the world's scales as an autonomous measure of reality depends upon the assumption that the sovereign God does not exist.
The world's scales also depend upon the epistemological ability of finite humanity . For that reason, these scales have a natural tilt toward skepticism. Measuring reality is a task infinitely beyond finite humanity's autonomous ability. This built in skepticism is often conveniently ignored when measuring secular systems, but it is stressed when weighing evidence for God's existence. In that context, many questions are raised. How do we know there is any true causality? How can we prove that what appears to be cause and effect is not coincidence? How do we know that there is not an infinite regress of causes? Even if there is a God, how can we be sure that there can be a cause and effect relationship between the eternal and the finite? How do we know there is not an evolutionary principle at work which causes design and order to arise naturally from the original chaos?
These skeptical questions have as much validity as do the world's autonomous scales. The fatal mistake of the evidentialist was to acknowledge the validity of the world's scales at the onset of the discussion.
We put these same issues on our scales, and we get an entirely different reading. The world about us is far too complex, too orderly to have just happened. The general tendency in nature is not to go from chaos to order but to go from order to chaos. We are reminded of this every time we have to straighten up the office or the house. The world about us is far too wonderful just to have happened but the world about us is also not nearly wonderful enough to be self-generating and self-explanatory. This data confirms the message of the Bible. The Bible says that the sovereign Creator God is so wonderful that He alone is an uncaused Cause, a non-derived Being who is self-generating and self-explanatory.
Evidentialism is like the tower of Babel. The evidentialist has built a human foundation on earth and is trying to build up from it into the heavens. Presuppositionalism is like Jacob's ladder. Heaven has come down to earth and has given us a divine foundation upon which to build. Jesus said, "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven" (John 3:13). Jesus, the one who has come down to us from heaven, has provided the only adequate foundation upon which to build our understanding of things both earthly and heavenly. "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11).
We put the data on the world's scales, and the reading is skepticism about God. We put the same data on our scales, and the reading is confirmation that the God of the Bible exists. You can't win this argument if you begin by abandoning the Christian scales and adopting the world's scales in the name of establishing a common ground for discussion.
- Here is the second major problem with the evidentialistic approach: the evidentialist has told the non-Christian that his scales are working well and giving an accurate reading of reality.
These scales are basically the world view of the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. Instead of saying, "Hey, your scales work great!", we should be saying, "Hey, get your thumb off of those scales! You're cheating!"
There may be some unthinkable consequences if the law of non-contradiction is not valid and if the law of causality is not valid and if sense experience is not reliable. Nevertheless, those unthinkable consequences are unavoidable is the non-Christian world view is true. That is the point we should be stressing. The apologist should be pressing the non-Christian to the line of despair instead of giving comfort and shelter to the enemy by catering to his illusions.
The true common ground between the Christian and the non-Christian are not the philosophical assumptions of the Enlightenment. The true common ground are those internal and external stamped weights which God has given us. Both the Christian and the non-Christian are created in God's image. Both the Christian and the non-Christian live in a world created by God and covered with His finger prints.
Dr. Greg Bahnsen contrasted evidentialism with presuppositionalism this way:
"[Manifesting the foolishness of this world's 'wisdom'] calls for much more than a piecemeal attempt to adduce vague probabilities of isolated evidences for the reasonableness of Christianity. It requires, instead, the full scale demonstration of the unreasonableness of anti-Christianity in contrast to the certainty of truth to be found in God's word."6CONCLUSION
Let's conclude by considering the parable of the wise man and the foolish man found at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:24-27:
24 "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 "and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26 "Now everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 "and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall." We should invite the non-Christian to watch as we build our world view house on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. We should invite him to bring against our house the rain and floods and winds of criticism. The house will not fall, for it is founded on the rock.
We should also invite him to build his world view house on the sands of his ultimate commitments and presuppositions. Then we should bring against it the rain and floods and winds of critical examination. It will fall, and great will be the fall thereof.
FOOTNOTES
1 Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready (Atlanta, Georgia: American Vision and Texarkana, Arkansas: Covenant Media Foundation, 1996), 68-69. 2 William Edgar, Reasons of the Heart (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1996), 14. 3 Joseph Gerard Brennan, The Meaning of Philosophy, Second Edition (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1953), 131, footnote 6. 4 Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready, 70. 5 Nancy R. Pearcey, "The Evolution Backlash: Debunking Darwin" in World, March 1, 1997 edition, pages 12-15. The mousetrap is Mr. Michael Behe's favorite example of irreducible complexity; see page 14. 6 Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready, 60.