1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,760 Dr. Sproul, after Dr. Meyer's talk, back here in the room, you mentioned, boy, that's great 2 00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:19,080 apologetics. And there's a question here asking an apologetical method question. Can you explain 3 00:00:19,080 --> 00:00:24,040 the difference between presuppositional and classical apologetics? And maybe elaborate 4 00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:30,920 on what you meant by even Dr. Meyer's talk and how you thought that that was a well-presented 5 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:36,759 apologetical argument within a framework of the different schools of thought of approaching 6 00:00:36,759 --> 00:00:37,759 apologetics. 7 00:00:37,759 --> 00:00:41,320 SPROUL JR.: There are different schools of thought with respect to apologetics. I can 8 00:00:41,320 --> 00:00:45,919 think of at least three right off the bat. There's presuppositionalism, and there are 9 00:00:45,919 --> 00:00:50,919 different schools of that. There's axiomatic presuppositionalism that follows Gordon Clark, 10 00:00:50,919 --> 00:00:55,919 and then there's the other presuppositional school that follows Cornelius Van Til. And 11 00:00:55,919 --> 00:01:02,560 then there's the second approach to apologetics, which is called evidentialism. And then the 12 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:09,279 third view that I espouse, which is called classical view of apologetics. There are lots 13 00:01:09,279 --> 00:01:16,160 of differences, Chris, and it would be unfair to try to define them absolutely in the short 14 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:22,160 term, but the fundamental differences in presuppositional apologetics argues this 15 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:28,839 way that the only way you can come to a sound conclusion of the existence of God is that 16 00:01:28,839 --> 00:01:35,760 you must begin with the assertion of God's existence. You must presuppose the existence 17 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:45,879 of God in order to have a sound argument for the existence of God. Evidentialism sees that 18 00:01:45,879 --> 00:01:52,760 as circular, which of course they don't have that critique of presuppositions being circular 19 00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:58,400 in its reasoning process. It's not something that one must prove or display, because for 20 00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:05,480 example Van Til's defense of presuppositional apologetics, he not only admits, in fact he 21 00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:11,800 wouldn't like the word admit, but he agrees that it is circular, but he says in defense 22 00:02:11,800 --> 00:02:20,440 of that that the nature of all arguments is circular, that the starting points and 23 00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:28,039 the conclusions are all bound up one with another. And what he means by that, I see 24 00:02:28,039 --> 00:02:32,119 two problems with that. One is if you admit that your method of proving the existence 25 00:02:32,119 --> 00:02:40,479 of God is circular and commits the Petit Principia fallacy in logic, then you've already surrendered 26 00:02:40,479 --> 00:02:47,919 the rationality of your position, and you've given the unbeliever an excuse to reject your 27 00:02:47,919 --> 00:02:55,639 position because you have made a logical violation in the process. Well, Van Til acknowledges 28 00:02:55,639 --> 00:03:00,919 circular reasoning, but he defends it by saying, as I mentioned, that it's a particular type 29 00:03:00,919 --> 00:03:07,639 of circular reasoning, and in this case he commits a second informal fallacy, the one 30 00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:13,479 of equivocation, because the meaning of the term circular changes in the argument. He 31 00:03:13,479 --> 00:03:20,720 could have just as easily said that all arguments are by nature linear, that if I start with 32 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:26,559 a rational starting point and come to a rational conclusion, that's not circularity. That's 33 00:03:26,559 --> 00:03:31,639 linearity. It's the same thing if I begin with an empirical premise and come to an empirical 34 00:03:31,639 --> 00:03:38,000 conclusion. I've just remained consistent in my methodology, and there's no sin in that. 35 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:46,399 The problem against that, evidentialism says that we present concrete empirical evidence 36 00:03:46,399 --> 00:03:54,800 for the existence of God, arguing from nature and so on, and also from history and the like, 37 00:03:54,800 --> 00:04:01,479 and that that will give you a probability quotient of conclusion that would satisfy 38 00:04:01,479 --> 00:04:09,119 even somebody like David Hume in terms of the astronomical probability quotient that 39 00:04:09,119 --> 00:04:15,279 you achieve, but that even those arguments based on empirical investigation and so on 40 00:04:15,279 --> 00:04:21,720 and inferences drawn from them will not get you to formal certainty, that that can only 41 00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:30,920 be arrived at through a logical proof that is irrefutable. But classical apologetics 42 00:04:30,920 --> 00:04:36,959 say that the case for the existence of God can be proven demonstrably, rationally, and 43 00:04:36,959 --> 00:04:43,760 formally, and compellingly. So it's a little stronger than evidentialists who are more 44 00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:49,359 empirically oriented. But what I said afterwards was that that's the way apologetics ought 45 00:04:49,359 --> 00:04:54,519 to be done. You don't just say to the scientific community, well, you're working on the wrong 46 00:04:54,519 --> 00:05:01,279 presuppositions or you have the wrong worldview. That's true, but you have to begin to show 47 00:05:01,279 --> 00:05:09,519 them that the conclusions that they've drawn from their own evidence are formally invalid, 48 00:05:09,519 --> 00:05:14,079 which is what I heard this morning, and I thought it was magnificent. 49 00:05:14,079 --> 00:05:19,799 One follow-up question is, how do we explain why classical apologetics is not equated with 50 00:05:19,799 --> 00:05:23,519 rationalism? 51 00:05:23,519 --> 00:05:33,160 That's to me again? How do I answer the charge? Well, you know, if I espouse to be human, 52 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:38,679 that doesn't mean I've embraced humanism. If I argue that I exist, that doesn't mean 53 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:44,359 that I am an advocate of existentialism, and just because a woman is feminine does not 54 00:05:44,359 --> 00:05:53,000 make her a feminist. We want to be rational. To be rational is to think in a sound way, 55 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:57,959 and to be rational does not mean you embrace rationalism, and at the same time you have 56 00:05:57,959 --> 00:06:03,000 to understand that historically in the field of philosophical inquiry there have been three 57 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:09,040 distinct types of rationalism. Cartesian rationalism, where rationalism is distinguished 58 00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:15,279 from empiricism, where the highest proof is found in the a priori categories of the mind 59 00:06:15,279 --> 00:06:22,200 rather than a posteriori demonstrations empirically. In that debate between the seventeenth and 60 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:27,200 eighteenth centuries, the second form of rationalism is the form you found in the Enlightenment 61 00:06:27,399 --> 00:06:33,839 where the rationalism was distinguished not from empiricism, but from revelation, where 62 00:06:33,839 --> 00:06:40,119 reason was elevated above the trustworthiness of supernatural revelation. Then the third 63 00:06:40,119 --> 00:06:46,320 kind of rationalism is the Hegelian rationalism of the nineteenth century, where reason is 64 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:52,320 elevated to the capital R, where it is the highest reality, where reason itself becomes 65 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:56,279 God. So when you call me a rationalist, I want to know what kind of rationalist you're 66 00:06:56,279 --> 00:07:03,559 calling me, and I would deny all three of those and would say I'm just trying to be 67 00:07:03,559 --> 00:07:12,359 rational. I hope that answers it. The alternative to that is everything outside of the category 68 00:07:12,359 --> 00:07:21,760 of the rational is what? Irrational. We don't want that. 69 00:07:21,799 --> 00:07:27,519 Before we get to the classical view, let me mention another approach to apologetics, which 70 00:07:27,519 --> 00:07:36,200 has become the overwhelming majority report within Reformed theology, and that is the 71 00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:42,279 view of apologetics known as presuppositional apologetics. There's more than one variety 72 00:07:42,279 --> 00:07:48,920 of it. There's axiomatic presuppositionalism that was championed by Gordon Clark, but the 73 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:56,760 more popular view of presuppositionalism is that that was developed by Cornelius Van Til 74 00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:01,440 late of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, where he labored for several 75 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:10,040 decades and who has published much in this field, and who was indeed a genuine giant 76 00:08:10,040 --> 00:08:19,040 and titan of the Christian faith. The book that I co-authored with John Gerstner and 77 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:29,359 Lindsay, entitled Classical Apologetics, includes in one-third of that book a comprehensive 78 00:08:29,359 --> 00:08:36,559 critique of presuppositionalism. So because of that book that Art Lindsley and John Gerstner 79 00:08:36,559 --> 00:08:44,719 and I authored, we have become engaged in ongoing dialogue within the Reformed camp 80 00:08:44,719 --> 00:08:54,559 with respect to what is the preferred approach to doing apologetics. And Dr. Mantill, having 81 00:08:54,559 --> 00:09:02,599 written in the English language, which was not his native tongue, he was a native of 82 00:09:02,599 --> 00:09:09,840 Holland, sometimes writes in a style that is somewhat difficult to follow. And because 83 00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:17,679 of that, not only do his critics differ among themselves as to what he was actually saying, 84 00:09:17,679 --> 00:09:24,479 but also some of his most noteworthy students differ in how they interpret him. Some of 85 00:09:24,479 --> 00:09:31,080 his students interpret Mantill as a fitteist, whereas I think his most able interpreter, 86 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:40,280 the late Gregory Bonson, did not see Mantill as a fitteist, but saw him arguing a rational 87 00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:43,280 case for the existence of God. 88 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:47,840 And I'm not going to get into a lot of discussion right now about presuppositionalism, only 89 00:09:47,840 --> 00:09:57,520 to say by way of introduction that the presuppositional approach says this, that in order to arrive 90 00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:08,119 at the conclusion that God exists, in order to prove the existence of God, you must start 91 00:10:08,119 --> 00:10:17,719 with your primary premise, your first premise, being the presupposition of the existence 92 00:10:17,719 --> 00:10:25,599 of God. In other words, that unless you start by presupposing the existence of God, you 93 00:10:25,599 --> 00:10:31,919 will never get to the conclusion of the existence of God. 94 00:10:31,919 --> 00:10:39,320 Now, of course, the immediate objection that is raised against that form of thinking is 95 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:47,960 that that procedure of starting with the thesis that God exists and then reasoning to the 96 00:10:47,960 --> 00:11:01,080 conclusion that God exists involves a classic fallacy of logic called the Petitio Principii 97 00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:09,080 fallacy or the fallacy of circular reasoning. And the fallacy of circular reasoning occurs 98 00:11:09,080 --> 00:11:17,559 when the conclusion appears already in one of your premises. See, that the conclusion 99 00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:25,599 is already assumed up here. And so, this is a faulty form of reasoning which invalidates 100 00:11:25,599 --> 00:11:33,599 an argument, and that's been the chief objection raised against presuppositional apologetics. 101 00:11:33,599 --> 00:11:39,799 However, the defense that Dr. Van Til gave to that, because he was certainly aware that 102 00:11:39,799 --> 00:11:52,679 that charge would be made against this approach, he defended it by saying that all reasoning 103 00:11:52,679 --> 00:12:02,640 moves in a circular fashion. Insofar as its starting point, its middle ground, and its 104 00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:12,239 conclusions are all involved with each other, which is to say, if you start with a rational 105 00:12:12,239 --> 00:12:21,119 premise and you reason consistently in a rational way, your conclusion will be of a rational 106 00:12:21,119 --> 00:12:23,520 sort. 107 00:12:23,520 --> 00:12:32,400 And so, with that kind of definition, Dr. Van Til justifies his use of circular reasoning 108 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:39,080 saying that it's no different from anybody else because all reasoning is circular in 109 00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:48,080 that sense. Well, those of us who don't adopt this approach to apologetics find in the justification 110 00:12:48,119 --> 00:12:55,359 for circular reasoning the commission of a second fallacy that is as deadly as the 111 00:12:55,359 --> 00:13:02,719 first one. The first fallacy is the fallacy of circular reasoning, which in classic categories 112 00:13:02,719 --> 00:13:10,000 of logic invalidates an argument. The justification for using circular reasoning involves the 113 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:16,880 second fallacy, which is the fallacy of equivocation, where a term changes its meaning in the middle 114 00:13:16,919 --> 00:13:22,960 of the argument. When he justifies circular reasoning by saying that all reasoning is 115 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:27,960 circular in the sense that its starting point and its conclusion are of the similar sort, 116 00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:36,200 that's not what is meant by circular reasoning. We've all understood that a rational argument, 117 00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:43,039 if it's going to be rational, must be consistently rational throughout. And why call that a circle 118 00:13:43,119 --> 00:13:48,200 when in fact it's linear? You begin with a rational premise, you use another rational 119 00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:54,039 premise, and you move and advance to a conclusion that is of a rational sort without running 120 00:13:54,039 --> 00:14:01,440 around in a circle. Now, granted, there is a presupposition in rational argument, the 121 00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:08,679 presupposition of reason, the presupposition of the law of non-contradiction, the presupposition 122 00:14:08,679 --> 00:14:13,400 of causality, and the other presuppositions that I've been setting before you in this 123 00:14:13,400 --> 00:14:19,320 class, including the basic reliability of sense perception and the analogical use of 124 00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:27,679 language. Now, those who defend Dr. Van Til here, like Greg Bonson, are saying really 125 00:14:27,679 --> 00:14:34,760 what Van Til is getting at here is something a little deeper than a superficial exercise 126 00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:46,080 in circular reasoning. What he's saying is that if you want to assume rationality, to 127 00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:55,039 even assume rationality involves you out of necessity of presupposing the existence of 128 00:14:55,039 --> 00:15:04,039 God, because without God there is no foundation for rationality. There's no foundation for 129 00:15:04,039 --> 00:15:09,840 trusting the law of causality. There's no foundation for trusting the basic reliability 130 00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:15,780 of sense perception. And so, even though you don't admit it, when you advocate reason, 131 00:15:15,780 --> 00:15:22,080 you are already assuming the ground of that reason, which is God Himself. So, let's just 132 00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:28,599 be open and above board and say anybody who presupposes rationality is therefore presupposing 133 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:35,119 the existence of God, and they're simply disguising that. And so, I feel the weight of that because 134 00:15:35,119 --> 00:15:42,679 we certainly agree as classicists that it is true that if rationality is to be meaningful, 135 00:15:42,679 --> 00:15:48,760 and if these presuppositions of epistemology that I'm talking about are sound, then they 136 00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:53,080 scream for the existence of God. But that's exactly what classical apologetics is trying 137 00:15:53,080 --> 00:16:00,080 to prove, that if you want to be rational, you've got to affirm the existence of God, 138 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:05,679 because the very reason that you're presupposing demands the existence of God. But we have 139 00:16:05,679 --> 00:16:11,200 to show people that, and we don't think it's a good strategy just to muddle the argument 140 00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:16,000 by saying, well, you have to start with the existence of God in your premise, in your 141 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:20,880 argument in order to approve it, because then the other guy says, well, I'm going to start 142 00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:27,039 without the premise of God, and I'm going to end up in meaninglessness. Okay? And now 143 00:16:27,039 --> 00:16:34,039 what you have is a tie. And as they say, that's like kissing your sister, and we're not interested 144 00:16:34,039 --> 00:16:38,400 in that kind of experience. 145 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:46,400 So, the biggest objection that I have, frankly, besides these logical errors to presuppositionalism 146 00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:53,440 is that nobody starts with God except God. You can't start in your mind with God, the 147 00:16:55,719 --> 00:17:02,599 knowledge of God, unless you're God. Where we say you start is with self-consciousness, 148 00:17:02,599 --> 00:17:08,760 and from self-consciousness you move to the existence of God. You don't start with God 149 00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:15,760 consciousness and move to the existence of the self. By necessity, human beings thinking 150 00:17:16,079 --> 00:17:21,520 with human minds must start with where they are, with their brain. Now, the objection 151 00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:28,520 that comes to that is that we are capitulating to secular, pagan ideas of thought. I remember 152 00:17:29,319 --> 00:17:35,719 debating this point with one of the advocates of presuppositionalism in a public meeting 153 00:17:35,719 --> 00:17:42,719 almost thirty years ago, where this particular professor was very exercised when I said that 154 00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:48,280 you have to start with self-consciousness, and he said that that's unbiblical because 155 00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:55,280 that what I'm doing is assuming the autonomy of the self rather than the sovereignty of 156 00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:05,359 God, and that this is exactly what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden when they rebelled 157 00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:13,359 against God, and that it is a sinful, fallen, corrupt way to start reasoning by beginning 158 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:21,439 with the self rather than with God. And I said to him, I would certainly agree that 159 00:18:21,439 --> 00:18:28,439 if my first supposition, my primary premise in reasoning was the autonomy of myself, that 160 00:18:29,439 --> 00:18:36,439 I would be guilty of everything you say, that I would be indeed already embracing paganism, 161 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:43,680 and I could only end up if I were indeed consistent with the deification of the self and the rejection 162 00:18:45,260 --> 00:18:51,760 of God. But I said we don't start with the autonomy of the self, but simply the consciousness 163 00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:57,640 of the self, and I reminded my friend that Augustine himself said that with self-consciousness 164 00:18:57,680 --> 00:19:03,959 always comes immediately an awareness of finitude, that the moment that you're aware of yourself 165 00:19:03,959 --> 00:19:09,719 as a self, you know you're not God. That's what Calvin argued at the same time, and I'm 166 00:19:09,719 --> 00:19:16,719 saying that the idea of autonomy, where you're a law unto yourself, is not contained in the 167 00:19:20,359 --> 00:19:27,359 idea of self-consciousness. If it were, it would indeed be sinful to start at that point. 168 00:19:28,040 --> 00:19:32,800 What we're saying is that the beginning with self-consciousness is a given to creatureliness. 169 00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:38,280 It's the only place any self can start with their thinking. You cannot start in your mind 170 00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:44,020 with his thought, or with my thought, or with God's thought. The only thing you start with 171 00:19:44,020 --> 00:19:50,599 is your own self-awareness, and from there you move because you are a self, and you will 172 00:19:50,599 --> 00:19:55,000 soon discover that you are not autonomous at all. And that's what we're saying, that 173 00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:00,920 if you begin with self-consciousness, and you reason correctly, so far from ending in 174 00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:07,920 autonomy, you will in fact end by necessarily affirming the existence of God. 175 00:20:08,479 --> 00:20:14,680 The fear among presuppositionalists is that in arguing rationally and empirically that 176 00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:21,680 we give too much away to the pagan world, and of course the fear of the classicists 177 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:28,520 for the presuppositionists is they give too much away. They give the pagan an excuse for 178 00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:35,520 not believing in the existence of God, because the pagan can see that their approach violates 179 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:42,520 principles of rationality. But one thing we all agree on is that the construction of the 180 00:20:43,359 --> 00:20:50,359 existence of God is certainly the most important single premise in the building of a person's 181 00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:57,119 life and worldview, and that we know that what the pagan does, according to Romans 1, 182 00:20:57,119 --> 00:21:03,359 is that the first lie that he embraces is the denial of the eternal power and deity 183 00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:09,000 of God. And then his mind becomes darkened, and the more brilliant he is, the further 184 00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:16,000 away he moves from that first awareness of God that he gets in nature. And so we all 185 00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:23,000 agree in the supreme importance of establishing early on in our apologetic the existence 186 00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:27,959 of God. That's the first thing that has to be established. We agree that God is first 187 00:21:27,959 --> 00:21:34,359 in the order of being, obviously, but the disagreement is what comes first in the process 188 00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:41,359 of knowing. We say God is first in the order of being, but not first in the order of knowing.