Apologetics is a word derived from two Greek words: Apo and logos. Apo means away from and logos means word. So to engage in apologetics is to ‘give a word back,’ hence the meaning ‘to defend.’ When we are apologists for Christianity we are seeking to defend the Christian faith over against non-Christian systems of thought which are sometimes called worldviews. Apologetics also serves an evangelistic function as we seek to demonstrate the wonderful salvation that is ours in Christ. The Greek word apolo­gia occurs in several places in the NT.

Acts 19:33:

And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defence unto the people.

Acts 22:1:

Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence which I make now unto you.

Phil. 1:7:

Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace.

Phil. 1:17:

But the other of love, know­ing that I am set for the defence of the gospel.

1 Pet. 3:15:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meek­ness and fear.

How do we do it?⤒🔗

None of us would deny that it is necessary for the Christian to be able to defend the gospel, but how do we do that? If you were to tell someone how to defend the Gospel what would you say?

Yes, we would point to the Scriptures and perhaps also endeavour to use archaeology, science and inductive reasoning (the process of deriving general principles from particular facts or instances) to argue for the reality of the historicity of Jesus: the factual certainty of the resurrection; that God exists; that the Bible is the Word of God; that man is a sinner who needs to be reconciled with God; that God is Triune; and that the cross-work and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only way of reconciliation with God.

But if you thought a little more deeply about what you are endeavouring to do for the unbeliever as you defend the faith, you would be reminded that the Bible teaches that the Gospel is ‘foolishness to those who are perishing’ (1 Cor. 1:18) and that unbeliev­ers are ‘dead in their trespasses and sins’ (Eph. 2:1). Our problem, therefore, is not just about proving facts, but it is also about the spiritual condition of the one we are hop­ing to persuade to become a Christian.

This raises the problem of the point of contact, or what exactly does the Christian have in common with the non-Christian which will enable the believer to engage the mind of the unbeliever in a compelling manner as he endeavours to persuade the non-Christian to embrace the gospel. Another way of stating this problem is to talk about starting points. Where do we start when we begin to engage the unbeliever with the claims of Christ? Do we start with God or with self?

Two Different Approaches←⤒🔗

It is at this point where Christians take dif­ferent roads in their apologetic adventures. Broadly speaking, there are two different approaches to apologetics. The two names generally used to describe these compet­ing approaches to defending the faith are presuppositionalism and evidentialism. Quite a mouthful, aren’t they? And actually, a recent book, edited by Steven Cowan entitled Five Views on Apologetics, splits evidentialism into three types and presup­positionalism into two further complicating things. We will refrain from being so detailed in our overview, but it also does not help us that these two terms presuppositionalism and evidentialism can be quite mislead­ing. The evidentialist has presuppositions and the presuppositionalist uses evidence in his apologetical task. So, I suggest two other names for these approaches, which are more helpful in explaining the real differences, although we will sometimes use the more customary terms in this lecture. The names I give to the two approaches are the neutral-ground method and secondly, the grounded-in-God method. The distinguishing feature of the presuppositional approach, the grounded-in-God method, of doing apologetics is simply that it denies that truth can be arrived at by autonomous human reason. Rather, all apologetics must assume or presuppose the Triune God of the Bible and that this God has revealed His will in the Christian Scriptures. In other words, the grounded-in-God apologist refuses to acknowledge that there is a neutral starting point when arguing for spiritual truth, or indeed for reality generally. Therefore, this position always assumes the Triune God in any argument.

The evidentialist, on the other hand, does accept that by the use of human reason the Christian apologist, without assuming God in the reasoning process, can lead the unbeliever to see spiritual truth. Therefore we can call this approach the neutral-ground method, be­cause this apologist believes that it is possible to enter neutral ground, which one has in common with the unbeliever, in order to defend the faith.

Let me just give a brief example of how these two approaches differ from one another, before we look in more detail at them both. We will consider how to defend the truth that the Bible is the Word of God according to the evidentialist or neutral-ground approach, and then we will notice the criticism of the grounded-in-God apologist. We will, however, deal with both views in more detail once we have had a brief practical overview of how their two approaches differ.

Example: Defending the truth that the Bible is the Word of God: The evidentialist or neutral- ground method to apologetics will confidently present an argument to an unbeliever to demonstrate that the Bible is the Word of God, believing that he can con­vince a non-Christian that there is irrefutable evidence that the Bible is the Word of God which the unbeliever will recognise once he has considered the arguments presented by the Christian apologist.¹

• The neutral-ground apologist will first begin with the premise that the gospels are reliable historical sources (of course, the apologist will not presuppose that the Bible is the Word of God).
   
• In these reliable records we read about Jesus, who claimed to be divine and who worked miracles.
   
• His miracles verified the truth of His teaching.
   
• Therefore Jesus must be God and His claim that the Scriptures are the Word of God should be believed.
   
• Other arguments will involve the neutral-ground apologist pointing to other evi­dence such as:
   
• The unity or consistency of the message in Scripture even though the sixty six books were written over mil­lennia by different authors.
   
• The evidence of the fulfilment of proph­ecy and many other reasons will be pre­sented to demon­strate that the Bible is indeed the Word of God.
   
• The unbeliever will then be able to make sense of these arguments, even though he is sitting in an unbelieving situation and does not even believe that the God of the Bible exists. The evidentialist says, “that is OK, you can still see that the Bible is the Word of God, even though you don’t presently believe in the God of the Bible or perhaps any God”. You don’t even have to assume God as a point of argument, because the Christian apologist can give you neutral facts which we can both agree on as being true. We can reason together and agree together over the result of the reasoning process or argument.

What is wrong with this approach, accord­ing to the presuppositional, grounded-in­-God apologist?

John Frame, in his largely sympathetic critique of the founding father of presup­positionalism Cornelius Van Til, titled: Cor­nelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, points out that there is no current scholarly consensus that the gospels are historically reliable, something assumed by the neutral-ground apologist; granting that Jesus did some pretty amazing things, but it does not automatically follow that this is sufficient to prove that He is God.

There may be some other explanation for these miracles, which reason can come up with. Therefore, this argument does not prove with absolute certainty that Jesus is who He said He was and that the Gospels are absolutely reliable, unless one ap­proaches the data with Christian presupposi­tions – something the unbeliever by nature rejects. Of course, we as genuine Christians accept that the miracles authenticate Jesus’ message and divinity, and that the gospels are 100% reliable; but that is because of our Christian presuppositions and the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit.

The grounded-in-God apologist will say that the evidentialist/neutral-ground apologist is giving away very important ground even before he begins his wit­nessing. The neutral-ground apologist is acknowledging to the unbeliever that the non-Christian can objectively examine the reasons presented about the identity of the Bible as the Word of God, even though the unbeliever does not assume God’s existence. But why is this a problem? After all, what is wrong with presenting all these very good arguments that the Bible is what we as Christians know it to be?

If the apologist thinks that unbeliever will be persuaded without the work of the Holy Spirit regenerating him, then the arguments presented are not sufficient in themselves as arguments to persuade the unbeliever. As an evidentialist apologist, you have given the unbeliever the false idea that he will be able to see that the Bible is the Word of God using his own autonomous reason, and therefore without assuming God in that reasoning process. The unbeliever’s problem is moral. He is dead in his trespasses and sins and is at enmity with God. Part of his rebellion is his claim that he can arrive at true spiritual conclusions by reason alone as an autonomous subject.

Leaving aside the truth that his eyes are blind to see the truth, take, for example, the argument about fulfilled prophecy:

• The unbeliever can argue that while there might appear to be these fulfilled prophecies, there might also be other explanations.
   
• Perhaps the authors of the gospels just made it all up to fit in with the predictions in the Psalms and other books of the Old Testament.
   
• Or maybe the book of Daniel or some other book which appears to predict later events was written at a much later date. Indeed, the unbeliever can find lib­eral “Christian” scholars to support this scepticism.
   
• Or when you argue that the message of the Bible is consistent from Genesis to Revelation, as we affirm, the unbeliever can say that this is just because you interpret the Bible this way.
   
• He can point, for example, to Jewish exe­gesis, which gives quite a different picture of the meaning of the Old Testament and why they reject the New Testament.

Well, that is a brief glimpse of the debate over how to use apologetics as evangelical, Bible-believing Christians. As we look now more closely at these two positions, hope­fully their strengths and weaknesses will become more obvious to us. Let us then go further into evidentialism or the neutral-ground method of apologetics.

The Evidentialist Method←⤒🔗

I. Evidentialism/Neutral-Ground Method←↰⤒🔗

Let us consider in more detail the eviden­tialist position, which we have called the neutral-ground method of defending the faith. This title I have given to this approach is not meant to be demeaning or a judge­ment of this view. It is intended only as a realistic description of what is also known as evidentialism.

Who are the main exponents of this ap­proach to apologetics? They include John W. Montgomery, Clark Pinnock, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Josh McDowell, R. C. Sproul, John Gerstner, Paul Feinberg and C. S. Lewis, and no doubt many others who deserve to be mentioned. Theologically they are also a diverse group.

The Role of Faith←↰⤒🔗

It might seem odd to talk about faith when we are considering a method which relies on evidence. But a discussion on faith is an important prereq­uisite to understanding the neutral-ground method of apologetics.

Sproul, Gerstner and Lindsley in their book Classical Apologetics (‘classical’ is an­other term for the neutral-ground method) make this point.²

Describing the Reformation description of faith as notitia, assensus and fiducia (21) they note that just having the first two ele­ments is not to possess true saving faith. Notitia refers to the data or content of the faith, while assensus describes the assent by the intellect to the object of faith. However, this faith is no better than the faith of the demons who believe and tremble (James 2:19). The third element, fiducia or personal trust, must also be present for a person to possess saving faith. This all Christians would, I trust, agree with.

But don’t forget, they argue, that while merely possessing notitia and assensus cannot constitute saving faith without fidu­cia, they are both nonetheless necessary. Hence, they tell us that we must at least present the data of Christian belief and press the unbeliever to assent to the data as a prerequisite for fiducia or trust as the final element of saving faith.

The authors also agree that apologet­ics cannot produce this final element. This is reserved for the sovereign work of God. Those of you familiar with the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism will recognize that the authors of this book, in asserting that fiducia can only come from God the Holy Spirit without any assistance from men, are indeed Calvinists, or Reformed, or those who hold to the sovereignty of God in salvation (They would argue that faith comes from God by referring us to Eph. 2:8). Nevertheless, our neutral-ground apologists see the apologetic task as crucial because it at least introduces the non-Christian to the data and the possibil­ity for intellectual assent to the arguments presented by neutral-ground method. The Holy Spirit does not produce fiducia in a vacuum, but uses the first two elements of faith to bring the subject to personal saving faith in Christ.

Evaluation←↰⤒🔗

This seems to be a good argument for the necessity of apologetics, but it does not answer the question of whether the neutral-ground method can achieve even the modest goal of our evidentialists – the goal of presenting the data of Christian The­ism and evoking intellectual assent to that data. And as we will see, it is wide open to the criticism that the unbeliever is actually receiving different “facts” than those under­stood by the Christian.

Common Ground←↰⤒🔗

The neutral-ground apologist does not deny that Christians and non-Christians have a different belief system and view of reality. But in endeavouring to find common ground, this apologist finds at least common assumptions adhered to by the theist and the non-theist. Three are held up as common to all men and are essentially what the neutral-ground proponents mean by natural theology (perhaps include here a brief digression on the link with Thomas Aquinas). They also rightly see from Romans 1 that all men can know God in some sense from “nature.” This is agreed on all sides, but the neutral-ground folk bring in philosophical presuppositions to explain how a natural theology is possible:

• The law of non-contradiction
• The law of causality
• The reliability of sense perception.

The law of non-contradiction states that something cannot be true and not true at the same time and in the same relationship. All men, The­ist and non-Theist, alike can agree with this principle. Similarly with the law of causality, that every effect has a cause, is said to be an inviolable principle that all can subscribe to. The neutral-ground apologist uses this so-called law of causality to present an argument for the existence of God. Since he perceives the world to be an effect, there must be a cause behind the effect, hence the need for a Creator God. However, logically there is no need to posit God based on this principle alone, because the world could be eternal and therefore an uncaused cause, or god itself.

The third principle, the reliability of sense perception, is the final common-ground ability all men possess. With the assumption that these three principles are sufficient to give a natural theology, the apologist tries to prove the existence of God, etc.

The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God←↰⤒🔗

It will be best to show how these three princi­ples are used by the neutral-ground apolo­gist with another practical example. With these three ideas, the apologist believes that he can prove the existence of God. We will consider the use of “causality” to prove, in their view, the existence of God.

There are several celebrated so-called proofs for the existence of God. One of those is the cosmological argument which is an ap­peal to the obvious design or order we see about us in the cosmos. This order or design requires us to posit a designer or orderer who is separate from the cosmos – hence God. Sproul and co. present their cosmologi­cal argument this way.³ They argue that the existence of God can be proven from the existence of a molecule.

There are apparently four possible expla­nations for the existence of a molecule. The molecule could be an illusion; self-created; self-existent; or created ultimately by some­thing which is self-existent.

• They dismiss the first three ideas using argumentation available to the Christian and the non-Christian alike, leaving the final possibility that the molecule must have been “created ultimately by some­thing which is self-existent”.
   
• They add that this being must be God who is not only self existent, but eternal and transcendent.⁴
   
• Since, they contend, the notion of self-creation is irrational, there must be a necessary and self-existent being we call God. Through the use of the law of non-contradiction, the law of causality and the reliability of sense experience, man can prove to a non-Christian that God is necessary, if a single molecule is to ex­ist. While these authors try and give this god, who has been posited through the cosmological argument, the qualities or characteristics of the God of the Bible, they have really only demonstrated that a god of sorts exists, not necessarily the God of Scripture, and therefore, the true God.⁵
   
• While we agree that God is known through what we call general revelation, or nature, we do not need the cosmological argument to prove this. We will return to this question when we come to consider the grounded-in-God apologists.

What, in summary, is at the heart of the neutral-ground or evidentialist approach to apologetics?

Essentially←↰⤒🔗

• The neutral-ground position holds that God uses evidence to persuade sinners to receive the Gospel and embrace Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
   
• Therefore, not only arguments found in Scripture for proving the truth of Scripture or the existence of God can be appealed to, but also arguments based on sci­ence, history and so on.
   
• The unbeliever can make much progress towards accepting a Christian world-view when the Christian apologist persuades him by the use of such evidence.
   
• Furthermore the unbeliever does not have to presuppose God’s existence and revelation in order to be influenced by the evidence. He may stand in his non-Christian worldview position and be persuaded as to the truth of Christian Theism.
   
• Autonomous reason, therefore, may arrive at a sufficient knowledge of truth which God can then use to convert the unbeliever. We have already noticed some of the criti­cism levelled against the neutral-ground apologist, but their stance becomes far more starkly exposed when we delve into the thinking of the presuppositionalist or the grounded-in-God apologist.

The second suggested Method to Win the War of Ideas←⤒🔗

II. Presuppositionalism/Grounded-in­-God Apologetics←↰⤒🔗

The Grounded-in-God apologist denies that man can obtain a true knowledge of God by autonomous reason, reason without presup­posing God.

As we noted previously, the name of the late Cornelius Van Til is the central figure of the presuppositionalism/grounded-in­-God position. He was formerly a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and popularised presuppo­sitional apologetics through his lectures and books. Van Til did not teach that the presentation of evidence was irrelevant to the task of apologetics, hence the unhelpful terminology of evidentialism contrasted with presuppositionalism. Both approaches to apologetics have presuppositions attached to them and both make use of evidence. We have seen that the law of non-contradiction is one such presupposition of the neutral-ground apologist. The real difference is that the neutral-ground approach says that meaningful knowledge about Christianity can be understood and believed to be true by evaluating the evidence from the standpoint of a non-Christian world view, where God is not first presupposed.

The grounded-in-God approach argues that you can only begin to understand Christian teaching when you are standing in the Christian world view and therefore considering the evidence presented by the Christian apologist as you both presuppose the existence and revelation of the God of the Bible.

Therefore, the grounded-in-God approach teaches that any fact cannot be known truly unless it is known in its relationship to the one true and living God. Van Til postulates, therefore, that the unbeliever cannot have true knowledge of God and His revelation while standing in his unbelieving worldview. The unbeliever cannot claim that his autono­mous reason will lead him to truth and to understand true facts, because all facts are related to God. To try to consider facts as “brute facts” which exist without reference to God is thus to talk nonsense.

Van Til would say, therefore, that the bat­tle is not over facts but over the philosophy of facts.

Therefore the grounded-in-God apologist uses a different strategy than the neutral-ground Christian. The grounded-in-God apologist sets out to show that the unbeliev­er’s world view will not enable him to know reality as long as he excludes God from his argumentation and, therefore, as long as he relies upon his autonomous reason.

For this reason, Van Til taught that it is unwise to suggest that there can be a neu­tral position from which the unbeliever and believer can engage in argument. There is no neutrality. Either you presuppose God or you presuppose that there is no God, or that God cannot be known.

But why take this approach to apologet­ics? Why not simply present good scientific arguments for the existence of God, for proving that Scripture is the Word of God, and for proving that our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead?

Van Til would respond that the answer to these questions is found in the actual condition of the heart of the unbeliever.

• Man already knows that God exists (Rom. 1:19-20)
   
• He knows, but he suppresses that knowledge (Rom. 1:18)
   
• But the natural man, the unbeliever, replaces that knowledge with his autono­mous reason to reject God.
   
• He is unable to find God from an alleged place of neutrality, where he can evaluate the arguments of the evidentialist, who tells him that he can reason without God to discover a conclusion that Christian theism is true and God exists.

Studying it Through its Critique←↰⤒🔗

Although we have already gone so far into this presuppositional approach already, I have chosen to take a gradual approach as we build on concepts. Actually the best way of going deeper into the grounded-in­-God position is to follow its critique of the neutral-ground viewpoint. What then is the grounded-in-God criticism of the neutral-ground or evidentialist position?

As we have seen, the neutral-ground approach does not begin with God’s truth assumed at their starting point, in their methodology and in their endpoint. God is not presupposed in the presentation of the evi­dence or in its assessment by the unbeliever. Van Til singles out neutral-ground apologists in his book Defence of the Faith. He says that since neutral-ground apologists (which he identifies as Roman Catholic and Arminian) are committed to a neutral starting point and methodology they are bound also to fall into the atomism of non-Christian thought. Since they will not look at all the facts as facts of the Christian theistic system, and flatly refuse to maintain that anything but a Christian theistic fact can exist at all, and with this claim challenge the non-Christian methodology from the outset of the argument, they are bound to be carried away to a non-Christian conclusion (DF 121-2).

The neutral-ground apologist thinks he can begin from a place of neutrality, and by drawing attention to general laws and empiri­cal facts which can be understood apart from Scripture and accepted by both the Christian and non-Christian. You can see why Van Til, therefore, singles out Roman Catholicism and Arminianism for criticism. Both these religious systems hold that man has some ability within himself to help himself become a Christian. Those of us from the Reformed tradition, however, believe that salvation is all of grace. This being so, one can begin to see how the neutral-ground method of apolo­getics is generally considered inadequate by most though not all from a Reformed position. And why is this? Because the neutral ground position holds to an overly-optimistic view of the abilities of fallen man.

The grounded-in-God apologist, therefore, rejects the notion that you can understand any fact fully and properly when leaving God out of the equation.

An Example←↰⤒🔗

Take the knowledge of a physical object like a tree. The unbeliever might be an expert in trees. He might know its name, and believe that he can understand all other knowable facts about that tree. He might know more about the tree that I do as a Christian. But if He does not assume God the Creator Who made the tree, however profound his knowledge of the facts about the tree may be, he does not truly know its import and reality. God is the creator of that tree; He sustains its life and has a purpose for that tree in His providence. Without assuming God, the unbeliever will never come to truly know that tree. The relationship of God, therefore, to any object of knowledge must be understood before we can use such facts in our reasoning.

Another difficulty, according to the grounded-in-God apologist, for the neutral‑ground apologist is that he seeks to use his autonomous reason to argue in a linear and inductive fashion. But God cannot be proven in this way, as we have noticed in the cosmological argument.

A third feature of neutral‑ground argumentation (although some evidentialists like R. C. Sproul would say they can achieve certainty) is that its proponents usually claim to be able to only prove probability and not certainty.

They can argue that God probably exists, but even the god they arrive at through man’s autonomous reason is not the God of the Bible. It should now be obvious to us that the grounded-in-God apologist, the so-called presuppositionalist, does not reject facts, but rejects the idea that there can be a neu­tral objective examination of facts from the standpoint of man’s autonomous reason.

The strategy of the grounded-in-God apolo­gist, therefore, is to expose the falseness of the non-Christian worldview. And he does this with evidence and with facts. But he always begins by assuming God’s relationship to the evidence and to the facts. The reason for this is simply because this strategy takes into account reality, whereas the neutral-ground apologist allows a “neutral” starting point, which in fact does not exist.

Point of Contact←↰⤒🔗

But if the grounded-in-God apologist is to connect with the unbeliever he is trying to reach with the gospel, where is the point of contact? If there is no neutral ground – if the unbeliever lives in an unreal world and will not assume the existence of the Triune God and the authenticity of Scripture as the one reality – how can we bridge the gap or begin a worthwhile discussion? How can I expect to convey anything meaningful about the gospel to him?

As we have already seen, the neutral-ground evidentialist appeals to three presup­positions behind human experience: The law of non-contradiction, the law of causality and the reliability of sense experience.

The grounded-in-God apologist says that these are insufficient to assure true knowledge, especially when the one using them refuses to presuppose God’s existence and revelation at the outset, thus effectively trying to prove reality even as he denies what is real. Thus using these three elements might make a god as prime-mover possible, or even probable; but it does not prove at all the certain existence of the Triune God of the Bible. So what is the point of contact for the grounded-in-God apologist if he rejects these three elements of human logic and experience as a sufficient common-ground position?

Cornelius Van Til talks about the point of contact with the unbeliever in terms of a head-on collision. In his monograph, Apologetics, he declares: “If there is no head-on collision with the systems of the natural man, there will be no point of contact with the sense of deity in the natural man”.

Van Til, therefore, identifies the point of contact between the Christian apologist and the unbeliever in an internal sense of deity, or internal knowledge that God exists.

The ‘proofs’ of God, such as the ontologi­cal and cosmological proofs, argued for on the basis of man’s autonomous reason, will not provide a sense of the true God. But all men do ‘know’ the true God instinctively. Van Til, therefore, appeals to the same Scriptures Sproul and other neutral-ground apologists point to, which demonstrate that all men have a sense of God’s reality. This universal knowledge is something presupposed by the Christian, because it is revealed in the Holy Scriptures. Paul writes to the Romans, as we have already noted, that all men know about God: ‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead’ (Romans 1:19b-20a). Every human being knows about God’s eternal power and divine nature. And Paul goes on to say in the next chapter that all men have the law of God written on their hearts also – so they know His righteous standards as well (Rom. 2:14-15).

So how does this truth become a point of contact for us and the unbeliever? Van Til puts it like this:

(The unbeliever) is the man with the iron mask. A true method of apologetics must seek to tear off that iron mask. The (ground­ed in God) apologist will point out again and again that the only method that will lead to the truth in any field is that method which recognizes the fact that man is a creature of God, that he must therefore seek to think God’s thoughts after him.

Romans 1 also has something to say about what the unbeliever or the natural man does with this knowledge of God he receives from nature. Paul puts it starkly in verse 18: ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.’ This holding of the truth in unrighteousness means that man holds down or suppresses the truth of God’s eternal power and divine nature evident to him in the creation, as well as in knowledge of God’s Law.

This ‘holding’ or ‘holding down’ borrows an image of a tyrant who unjustly imprisons the innocent. The natural man imprisons the truth by unrighteously or wickedly re­fusing to let that truth change him and his relationship with God. The grounded-in-God apologist must show the unbeliever that his worldview is ultimately destructive and irra­tional leading one further away from reason and science.

Van Til gives an illustration at this point:

Suppose we think of a man made of water in an infinitely extended ocean of water, Desiring to get out of water, he makes a ladder of water, He sets this ladder upon the water and against the water and then climbs out of the water only to fall into the water. So hopeless and senseless a picture must be drawn of the natural man’s methodology based as it is upon the assumption that time or chance is ultimate. On his assumption his own rationality is a product of chance. On his assumption even the laws of logic which he employs are products of chance. The rationality and purpose that he may be searching for are still bound to be products of chance. So then the Christian apologist, whose position requires him to hold that Christian theism is really true and as such must be taken as the presupposition which alone makes the acquisition of knowledge in any field intelligible, must join his ‘friend’ in his hopeless gyrations so as point out to him that his efforts are always in vain.

Pointing to a Man’s Own Complete Inadequacy←↰⤒🔗

Van Til says that it is the task of the Chris­tian apologist to endeavour to awaken the unbeliever to the fact that he holds to an impossible and unreal world as long as he suppresses the knowledge of God. Thus the unbeliever is self-deceived and cannot in his present state see the truth.

Another way of stating the difference between these two apologetics is this: The neutral-ground apologist believes that man has much knowledge of himself and the cosmos and from this knowledge can ask whether Christianity is true or whether God exists. The grounded-in-God apologist, on the other hand, believes that nothing can be known about man unless Christianity is reality.

This does not mean that Van Til would say that the unbeliever can have no true knowledge. Obviously he can make tremen­dous advances in science, even though he might identify himself as an atheist. No, the unbeliever can advance science because he secretly or subconsciously presupposes God. Since the only logical alternative to a God-controlled universe is a universe of chance, why does the atheistic science believe in the principle of uniformity or a law of non-contradiction or causality or the basic reliability of the senses? He can only do this because he is at the very least operating on the assumption that he can trust a principle of uniformity. This trust is consistent with presupposing God, but inconsistent with presupposing chance.

It is only because the unbeliever is ‘bor­rowing’ Christian assumptions such as providence and creation that he can make progress in science and have true knowledge. Therefore Van Til stated, “Anti-theism presupposes theism”.

Thus Van Til could argue that there was infallible evidence for the existence of God – but you have to presuppose God to see it, or to achieve true knowledge in God’s universe.

The best and only possible proof for the existence of such a God is that his existence is required for the uniformity of nature and for the coherence of all things in the world... Thus there is absolutely certain proof for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism. Even non-Christians presuppose its truth while they verbally reject it. They need to presuppose the truth of Christian theism in order to account for their own ac­complishments.

Since therefore all men have a knowledge of God, this is a point of contact and the groundwork where evidence properly presented may have good effect.

But Van Til can also say, that while every­man has this inner sense of God, because he suppresses it according to Romans 1:18 he also does not have a knowledge of God – this second knowledge which in­volves love and fellowship and submission. This knowledge the natural man does not have until he is born again.

God’s Spirit Needed←↰⤒🔗

In what sense, then, can this suppressed knowledge of God be common ground where progress can be made in draw­ing the unbeliever to see the truth of the Word of God about man, God and eternity? When the apologist explains the truth to the sinner, he is at the same time pray­ing that God will illuminate the unbeliever and regenerate him so that he can submit to the truth of God’s Word. God can effect that process by applying Scripture truth to the unbeliever, especially initially this truth that man has completely distorted the way God intended him to look at the world. If he would truly see the world as it really is he has to adopt Christian presuppositions, which mean presupposing God and His special revelation the Bible. The reason the natural man must do this is because until he does, he rejects the conception of an authority that stands above reason.

Van Til notes that,

it is logically quite impossible for the natural man, holding as he does to the idea of autonomy, even to consider the ‘evidence’ for the Scripture as the final and absolute authoritative revelation of the God of Christianity.

He explains that the modern natural man reasons with assumptions which always involve brute facts and chance. Brute facts which exist without reference to God are not reality. There are no brute facts which have no reference to God. And since the unbeliever does not presuppose that God’s counsel controls all reality he must believe that chance is ultimate, since man’s freedom is not in any way constrained by a sovereign God, the God of Scripture. The autonomous man must believe in chance because he rejects the idea that reality is structural by nature, being structured by God’s eternal plan.

Man himself, in modern systems of non-biblical thought, gives structure to reality. In other words man takes the irrational facts living in a universe of chance and give rationality or structure to that universe. In post-modern terms, this rationality is just for the individual. His neighbour might construct his reality differently as he rationalises the irrational. Such a person is hardly ready to receive the Bible as the Word of God. Van Til points out that ‘modern man who believes that he possesses an au­tonomous reason finds the idea of inscripturated supernatural revelation to­tally destructive of his idea of autonomy on which he builds his thought’.

He notes that the au­tonomous reasoner finds a self-contained God mean­ingless. Equally so, the concept of a revelation must be meaningless which defines what will happen in the future and which demonstrates that man is not an autonomous thinker at all.

Therefore unless he receives the Holy Spirit to enable the inner testimony of the Spirit to confirm to man’s spirit that the Bible is the Word of God, he will not believe it no matter how hard the evidentialist tries to present facts and evidences which support the idea. Why? Because the real “fact” that the universe is structured by God and that God reveals Himself in His special revelation the Bible is illogical to the unbeliever.

It is irrational to agree that the God of Scripture exists when you are reasoning along the lines of the autonomous man, whose very autonomy denies the existence of the sovereign God Who ordains whatever comes to pass. Such a man will accept that there might be a finite god, or a god of the philosophers who is a prime-mover, or a god whose will is thwarted by the freedom of men, but that is not the God of the Scrip­tures. Equally, the Scriptures are not the revelation of a finite god which allows man to retain his autonomy.

So this is the criticism of the Christian grounded-in-God apologist or the neutral-ground apologist who tries to meet the un­believer in some neutral position which does not assume God at the very outset.

Conclusion←↰⤒🔗

It is the philosophy or thinking or worldview of the unbeliever which must be destroyed if He is going to truly come to faith in the God of the Bible, the one true and living God.

Van Til sums up the beliefs of the unbe­liever when it comes to the Scriptures.

• The God of Scripture does not exist because He cannot exist according to the logic of the autonomous thinker. The idea of brute facts which do not need God mean that God’s (the God of the Bible) existence is negated.
   
• If God does exist, He could not show Himself to the world, because that world is made up of brute facts which are not themselves God’s revelation of Himself. As Christians, we say that all creation declares the glory of God.
   
• If God did exist and reveal Himself in a world which is made up of brute facts and therefore not a manifestation of God, if anyone received that revelation they would be falsifying God’s revelation since it conflicts with their world of brute facts and autonomous thinking.

All this means that the evidentialist has an uphill battle when he allows autonomous man to consider the Christian’s ‘evidence’ for the Bible as the Word of God.

The neutral-ground evidentialist has to argue in an unusual way. He will first try and convince the unbeliever of the possibility of revelation as if the Word of God means the same thing for believer and unbeliever alike. Van Til rightly adds that ‘revelation as if the Word of God’ does not mean the same thing. The unbeliever equates possibility with chance on the one hand, and something the unbeliever can rationalise on the other. In contrast, for the Christian, possibility is that which ‘may happen in accord with the plan of God’.

The neutral-ground apologist also thinks he can prove the probability of supernatu­ral revelation. But again probability means something different to the believer and to the natural man. If chance is allowed for, which is always the case for the natural man, then, as Scottish philosopher David Hume showed, there can be no probability that God would reveal Himself supernaturally.

Equally when the evidentialist tries to show the natural man that Christianity is based on historical facts, he cannot go far enough. Even if the natural man accepts that Jesus rose from the dead, he does not therefore need to conclude that the Bible is the Word of God as testified by Christ. Since a fact to him is different from a fact to the Christian, he does not have to make the link that Christ’s resurrection proves the veracity of the Bible. Facts cannot be disconnected from their meaning.

For the unbeliever, whose thinking is in terms of possibilities and probabilities, the ‘fact’ of the resurrection which he may accept is a different fact than that understood by the Christian. The unbeliever does not believe the full meaning of the fact. The theological meaning gives content to the fact and if the unbeliever merely accepts the possibility or probability that a man Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he has not believed the same fact a believer has received. He has voided reality of meaning.

The evidentialist, neutral-ground defender of the faith equally might convince the unbe­liever of many facts about the Bible, but if the unbeliever does not submit to its message, then he has not understood that the Bible is the Word of God. His own autonomous reasoning which presupposes chance and brute facts without God will prevent him, as long has he retains his autonomy, from ever being convinced that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God to which he must submit all his reasoning.

Even sin itself, which can only be recti­fied by an external supernatural grace of the self-existent God, makes no sense when one also believes that there is such grace to save – something the natural man cannot accept because of his rejection of a sovereign God who controls history. There are no brute facts but only facts as they connect to God.

The Reformed/presuppositional/ground­ed-in-God position must challenge the natural man’s appeal to brute facts (in metaphysics) and the autonomy of the mind (in epistemology), for these two assumptions control and guide the thinking of the natural man. But since they are a denial of reality, the grounded-in-God apologist seeks to get the unbeliever to shed these assumptions. In Van Til’s terms – to take off these coloured glasses so that he can see reality, which is always connected to God. The grounded­-in-God apologist firstly must present the ‘facts’ as they really exist, which is to say he presupposes God and His relationship to those facts from the outset.

What are some of these facts:

• God’s self-contained existence
• The fact of creation in general and man made in God’s image in particular
• The fact of the comprehensive plan and providence of God with respect to all that takes place in the universe
• The fact of the fall of man and his subse­quent sin

Van Til adds that ‘it is in relation to these facts that the other facts pertaining to the redemptive work of Christ are what they are.’ There is, therefore, only one system of reality; and that is the reality defined by these facts. Thus you are not presenting the facts as they are, if they are not presented as relating to this system.

Since human autonomy contradicts these facts – pre-eminently the fact that God is sovereign –then we must suggest to the natural man that his reasoning process, which presupposes human autonomy, is not part of reality and therefore he cannot possibly come to the right conclusions about reality.

‘Inherent in this system’ is the idea that God reveals His will through supernaturally given special revelation. The natural man who rejects this revelation cannot truly act upon ‘evidence’ given to him, because that ‘evidence’ contradicts his precious autonomy at every point.

Since the preaching of the cross is foolishness to the natural man, and since he suppresses the truth about the God he knows according to Romans, and because he distorts the law of God which is written on his heart, only a supernatural change of his presuppositions and world view will en­able him to receive the Christian faith. He must be regenerated or born again by the Spirit of God. This will mean that he discards the glasses of the autonomous man and embraces the whole system of Christian­ity, including the truth that the Bible is the touchstone of all truth and all reality.

Therefore we must tell the unbeliever that unless he accepts the Bible as the in­terpreter of reality about God, the world, and man, then he will never find true meaning in anything – even the truths of Scripture.

So which apologetical approach is the best one? Rightly understood, we are to use evidences as God intended to bring the unbeliever to reject his appeal to human autonomy. As we present the arguments of Scripture which may be also supported by argumentation, archaeology, history and science, we must always endeavour to make it clear to the person we are witnessing to that our ‘evidences’ are grounded-in-God evidences and that there is no neutral ground where he can stand to evaluate them. By God’s grace, the unbeliever may be given the eyes to see the truth about himself and about reality and come to see his need for a Saviour in Jesus Christ. We are, therefore, also to argue from reality – insisting that there is only one reality and it is the Christian reality, which is taught fully in Scripture. Yes we must present evidence and we must hold to and insist upon our presuppositions, that the God of Scripture is, and He has revealed His will fully for faith and life in the pages of the Word of God.