Originally posted by Mr. Black
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Some things can be wrong in our interpretation, but most (especially the foundationals) is quite clear.
If I understand you right, then I don't see any problem there. Reason is fine when used ministerially, as a tool for God's glory. After all, reason is one of God's many gifts to us. However, when man uses his reason in a magisterial way, then he's saying that man's mental deficiencies can hinder God's plan to reveal Himself to all men. So I think I agree with you if I understand you correctly. Reason is definitely a tool that's used in the process of interpretation, but our knowledge that the Bible is God's Word does not depend on our reason (i.e., its truth claims don't have to pass the test of man's reason before man can know that God's Word as a whole, whatever details we discover written it it thereafter, is true). It's immediate, rather than mediate, knowledge, meaning it's known to be God's Word without discursive reasoning on our part, even though we then read further and use our reasoning as a tool by which God conveys the content of His message to us.
I'm not sure why you would come to this conclusion. We have epistemic certainty that the biblical worldview is true because God has made us to know that it's true. God can (and does) grant epistemic certainty as to the truthfulness of the overall paradigm of reality that's articulated in His Word, which means I know that everything the Bible teaches is true, even if some of the minor, non-foundational details are still kinda fuzzy, so I'm not sure what God teaches there.
If you don't mind my asking, what do you mean by "presupposition" here?
And that's a beautiful truth that I'm not worthy of knowing about.
But the resurrection, beautiful as it is, doesn't prove the Christian worldview. It doesn't even prove that Christ is the Son of God. At best it proves that a man came back from the dead three days after His death. To the Jews, who accepted the one true God (i.e., did not suppress their knowledge of Him) this was clear proof that Jesus was the Messiah, prophesied about in their own Scriptures. But to the Gentiles it was absurd nonsense. Notice that when Peter preached to the Jews in Acts 2, He started pretty much the resurrection---because they were Jews. They spent their lives reading the sacred Scriptures which prophesied about Messiah, and they professed a worldview in which the fact of the resurrection can make sense. But when Paul spoke to the Athenian philosophers in Athens (Acts 17), who did not have a worldview that could make sense of the resurrection, he went the opposite direction, targeting their underlying assumptions. He began by analyzing the worldview of his opponents (verses 22-23) which is always an important step when one is about to perform an internal critique. He noted that they worshiped an "unknown God", and used it as an example of their suppressed knowledge of the one True God, going back to creation and building a rational foundation (or, if you will, articulating the Christian worldview, and its distinctive metaphysic) in which the resurrection could make sense. In verse 28, Paul moved back to his internal critique by pointing out that in God we live and move and exist, the knowledge of which the Athenians betrayed in their own engraved altar, and even in their own poetry. But which worldview can make sense of that fact? Not a worldview in which the gods are made of "gold, silver, or stone", as Paul put it, but rather a worldview wherein the one true God, whom all the Athenians had known their whole lives, created and sustains, and holds them accountable for having known Him, yet denying Him and breaking His law.
While there's nothing wrong with looking into the details of that glorious event, there are a couple problems here.
1.) All evidence is interpreted according to one's worldview, and the resurrection is no exception. As I already noted above, the non-christian will take the fact of the resurrection and reinterpret it to fit their worldview, appealing to the idea that perhaps the laws of physics are not always constant, and perhaps fluctuate slightly at times, or perhaps that there's a naturalistic explanation to be found in the future. "After all", they'll say, "We don't know everything about the universe. Who's to say that there's not a perfectly naturalistic explanation for it?" The resurrection is certainly proof for the Christian worldview, because all men know the God who raised Christ from the dead. For one who espouses the biblical worldview, the resurrection can be nothing but proof. But when men deny knowing that God and espouse a different worldview, they give that fact an alternate interpretation, an interpretation that fits their worldview. In a rational discussion wherein our interpretation of the resurrection is in question, it will do no good to simply present our interpretation of it. It proves nothing and begs the question.
2.) The evidentialist method, though well-intentioned, ends up being somewhat elitist, as all Christians are commanded to give a defense to every man who asks a reason for the hope within, but not all people have access to scientific tools and studies, and not all people have the time nor the energy to read enough books, and study enough material, to be able to answer any objection a non-christian brings. Thus on the evidentialist approach, no Christian can fulfill their duty laid down in 1 Peter 3:15.
Whereas with the presuppositional approach, its a matter of recognizing that (1) the fear of the Lord is the beginning (not the end result) of wisdom and knowledge (Proverbs 1:7), and all knowledge is in Christ (Colossians 2:3), and those who have a philosophy of life that's rooted in the "elementary principles of the world" rather than "in Christ" will end up being robbed of those treasures (Colossians 2:8). So (2) one needs to realize that, no matter what form an objection takes (whether its scientific, historical, logical, etc), its going to appeal to, and depend upon, one or more of the preconditions of intelligibility (laws of logic, uniformity of nature, moral absolutes, basic reliability of senses, memory, cognitive faculties, etc). Every objection assumes one or more of those, which the Bible says only God can account for. So with presupp, a Christian can acknowledge that it all boils down to one or more of those issues, and then master those issues. And the result is a rock solid argument that glorifies God, obeys His command to not put Him to the test (Deuteronomy 6:16, reiterated by Jesus in Luke 4:12), which allows us to actually fulfill God's command in 1 Peter 3:15, and provides a conclusion that's certain. Whereas with evidentialism, there's a lot more work, God get's put on trial (the unbeliever is allowed to place God "in the dock", as C.S. Lewis put it, in order to stand as judge and jury over Him), and at best a probable conclusion (or at least a conclusion that's said to be probable, but I don't believe that can be demonstrated).
I agree. God is clear in Romans 1:18-22 that all men know God in their heart of hearts already, and suppress that truth in unrighteousness, and that they're without excuse for denying Him. One cannot convince someone of what he already knows to be true. Apologetics is not a matter of convincing non-christians that God exists. It's about stripping them of their excuses for denying the God that they suppress their knowledge of, or, as Paul put it, "destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God," and "taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ". I never forgot Paul's contrast between the "speculations" against God, and "knowledge" of Him. :)
I agree. There's nothing wrong with Christians, who already accept God's authority, looking at the evidence and being comforted by it, so long as they're not questioning the authority and accuracy of God's Word. But if I were to be asked for a reason for the hope within me by a non-christian, and I appeal to evidence, then I've claimed that the testimony of human "experts" or our reasoning about the empirical evidence is a higher epistemological authority than God's testimony---which would directly contradict Hebrews 6:13 & Ephesians 1:21.
I disagree, as the evidentialist approach says that the Bible is to be accepted, not based on God's own testimony, but rather based on the testimony of external evidence, thereby saying that evidence has authority in the debate until its independently established that Christ was correct, and then, after that He has authority in the debate. Jesus disagreed, "And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." (Matthew 28:18).
Ministerial use of evidence (simply ministering to God's truth, showing that there's a way to interpret the evidence in a way that comports with God's Word) is fine, but magisterial use of evidence (placing God in the dock so that men can stand in judgment over the veracity of His Word, and therefore over the authority and trustworthiness of the God Who wrote it, the God they already know exists) is sinful (though most often unwittingly).
If I understand you right, then I don't see any problem there. Reason is fine when used ministerially, as a tool for God's glory. After all, reason is one of God's many gifts to us. However, when man uses his reason in a magisterial way, then he's saying that man's mental deficiencies can hinder God's plan to reveal Himself to all men. So I think I agree with you if I understand you correctly. Reason is definitely a tool that's used in the process of interpretation, but our knowledge that the Bible is God's Word does not depend on our reason (i.e., its truth claims don't have to pass the test of man's reason before man can know that God's Word as a whole, whatever details we discover written it it thereafter, is true). It's immediate, rather than mediate, knowledge, meaning it's known to be God's Word without discursive reasoning on our part, even though we then read further and use our reasoning as a tool by which God conveys the content of His message to us.
I'm not sure why you would come to this conclusion. We have epistemic certainty that the biblical worldview is true because God has made us to know that it's true. God can (and does) grant epistemic certainty as to the truthfulness of the overall paradigm of reality that's articulated in His Word, which means I know that everything the Bible teaches is true, even if some of the minor, non-foundational details are still kinda fuzzy, so I'm not sure what God teaches there.
If you don't mind my asking, what do you mean by "presupposition" here?
And that's a beautiful truth that I'm not worthy of knowing about.
But the resurrection, beautiful as it is, doesn't prove the Christian worldview. It doesn't even prove that Christ is the Son of God. At best it proves that a man came back from the dead three days after His death. To the Jews, who accepted the one true God (i.e., did not suppress their knowledge of Him) this was clear proof that Jesus was the Messiah, prophesied about in their own Scriptures. But to the Gentiles it was absurd nonsense. Notice that when Peter preached to the Jews in Acts 2, He started pretty much the resurrection---because they were Jews. They spent their lives reading the sacred Scriptures which prophesied about Messiah, and they professed a worldview in which the fact of the resurrection can make sense. But when Paul spoke to the Athenian philosophers in Athens (Acts 17), who did not have a worldview that could make sense of the resurrection, he went the opposite direction, targeting their underlying assumptions. He began by analyzing the worldview of his opponents (verses 22-23) which is always an important step when one is about to perform an internal critique. He noted that they worshiped an "unknown God", and used it as an example of their suppressed knowledge of the one True God, going back to creation and building a rational foundation (or, if you will, articulating the Christian worldview, and its distinctive metaphysic) in which the resurrection could make sense. In verse 28, Paul moved back to his internal critique by pointing out that in God we live and move and exist, the knowledge of which the Athenians betrayed in their own engraved altar, and even in their own poetry. But which worldview can make sense of that fact? Not a worldview in which the gods are made of "gold, silver, or stone", as Paul put it, but rather a worldview wherein the one true God, whom all the Athenians had known their whole lives, created and sustains, and holds them accountable for having known Him, yet denying Him and breaking His law.
While there's nothing wrong with looking into the details of that glorious event, there are a couple problems here.
1.) All evidence is interpreted according to one's worldview, and the resurrection is no exception. As I already noted above, the non-christian will take the fact of the resurrection and reinterpret it to fit their worldview, appealing to the idea that perhaps the laws of physics are not always constant, and perhaps fluctuate slightly at times, or perhaps that there's a naturalistic explanation to be found in the future. "After all", they'll say, "We don't know everything about the universe. Who's to say that there's not a perfectly naturalistic explanation for it?" The resurrection is certainly proof for the Christian worldview, because all men know the God who raised Christ from the dead. For one who espouses the biblical worldview, the resurrection can be nothing but proof. But when men deny knowing that God and espouse a different worldview, they give that fact an alternate interpretation, an interpretation that fits their worldview. In a rational discussion wherein our interpretation of the resurrection is in question, it will do no good to simply present our interpretation of it. It proves nothing and begs the question.
2.) The evidentialist method, though well-intentioned, ends up being somewhat elitist, as all Christians are commanded to give a defense to every man who asks a reason for the hope within, but not all people have access to scientific tools and studies, and not all people have the time nor the energy to read enough books, and study enough material, to be able to answer any objection a non-christian brings. Thus on the evidentialist approach, no Christian can fulfill their duty laid down in 1 Peter 3:15.
Whereas with the presuppositional approach, its a matter of recognizing that (1) the fear of the Lord is the beginning (not the end result) of wisdom and knowledge (Proverbs 1:7), and all knowledge is in Christ (Colossians 2:3), and those who have a philosophy of life that's rooted in the "elementary principles of the world" rather than "in Christ" will end up being robbed of those treasures (Colossians 2:8). So (2) one needs to realize that, no matter what form an objection takes (whether its scientific, historical, logical, etc), its going to appeal to, and depend upon, one or more of the preconditions of intelligibility (laws of logic, uniformity of nature, moral absolutes, basic reliability of senses, memory, cognitive faculties, etc). Every objection assumes one or more of those, which the Bible says only God can account for. So with presupp, a Christian can acknowledge that it all boils down to one or more of those issues, and then master those issues. And the result is a rock solid argument that glorifies God, obeys His command to not put Him to the test (Deuteronomy 6:16, reiterated by Jesus in Luke 4:12), which allows us to actually fulfill God's command in 1 Peter 3:15, and provides a conclusion that's certain. Whereas with evidentialism, there's a lot more work, God get's put on trial (the unbeliever is allowed to place God "in the dock", as C.S. Lewis put it, in order to stand as judge and jury over Him), and at best a probable conclusion (or at least a conclusion that's said to be probable, but I don't believe that can be demonstrated).
I agree. God is clear in Romans 1:18-22 that all men know God in their heart of hearts already, and suppress that truth in unrighteousness, and that they're without excuse for denying Him. One cannot convince someone of what he already knows to be true. Apologetics is not a matter of convincing non-christians that God exists. It's about stripping them of their excuses for denying the God that they suppress their knowledge of, or, as Paul put it, "destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God," and "taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ". I never forgot Paul's contrast between the "speculations" against God, and "knowledge" of Him. :)
I agree. There's nothing wrong with Christians, who already accept God's authority, looking at the evidence and being comforted by it, so long as they're not questioning the authority and accuracy of God's Word. But if I were to be asked for a reason for the hope within me by a non-christian, and I appeal to evidence, then I've claimed that the testimony of human "experts" or our reasoning about the empirical evidence is a higher epistemological authority than God's testimony---which would directly contradict Hebrews 6:13 & Ephesians 1:21.
I disagree, as the evidentialist approach says that the Bible is to be accepted, not based on God's own testimony, but rather based on the testimony of external evidence, thereby saying that evidence has authority in the debate until its independently established that Christ was correct, and then, after that He has authority in the debate. Jesus disagreed, "And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." (Matthew 28:18).
Ministerial use of evidence (simply ministering to God's truth, showing that there's a way to interpret the evidence in a way that comports with God's Word) is fine, but magisterial use of evidence (placing God in the dock so that men can stand in judgment over the veracity of His Word, and therefore over the authority and trustworthiness of the God Who wrote it, the God they already know exists) is sinful (though most often unwittingly).
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