A Practical (and Evangelistic) Presuppositionalism

The question of how to do apologetics is very important and should not be neglected. I have recently read interactions between a Christian and atheist where the Christian focused mostly on external evidences for the existence of God while the atheist simply dismissed the notions out of hand. The talk basically went like this:

ATHEIST: Where did the creator come from?
CHRISTIAN: Most common answer: He was always there.

CHRISTIAN: Where did the universe come from?
ATHEIST: It could have always been there. (We don't know what happened before the big bang). Hypothesizing a creator leads to more questions than it answers.

The cosmological argument was the tool being used, which says that every contingent thing has a cause, there cannot be an infinite regress of causes, therefore there must be a first cause. Furthermore, the best explanation for this first cause is God.

The atheists simply asked, Why postulate God? Why not take the simpler course of action and leave the question unanswerable?

The reason we cannot leave the question unanswerable is because of the demands that Jesus Christ has placed on humanity in the name of God the Father. This is the leverage needed to make answering the first cause argument an important issue.

Jesus commands us to be born again - John 3:5-6 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

Jesus commands us to believe in the Son of God - John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 6:28-29 Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

Jesus commands us to obey the righteous commandments of God - Matthew 5:19-20 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

If we begin apologetics with the fact that Jesus Christ provides a perfect solution for the dilemma of mankind, that he said and proved that he is God, and that the document containing this information, the Bible, has a divine and trustworthy character about it, then natural theology takes on a whole new function. It's function is not so much to prove the existence of God as it is to confirm what Christ has told us about God.

If we attempt to begin apologetics on the so-called "neutral" ground of evidence, even though arguments for the existence of God can be powerful stand alone arguments, nonetheless the atheist can claim agnosticism concerning them (rightly or wrongly). He may not feel compelled to search for an answer or so quick to see that God is the best explanation for the first cause, for apparent design in the universe, and for universal moral values.

But if we begin on the grounds that God has commanded us to surrender our lives to Him and trust in Christ for salvation and has offered a completely coherent worldview based on the axiom that he does all things for his own glory (John 17:4-10), then we can show how the world around us, indeed our very lives, conforms to that worldview.

It seems clear that the problem of man is moral, not intellectual. Thus we must preach the depravity of man and salvation through Christ first of all. These are the facts of reality even if those facts are denied and avoided by lost individuals. And then other apologetic arguments (focused on external evidences) serve to show the reasonableness of trusting Christ over other alternative authorities (naturalistic scientists, Eastern gurus, personal intuitions, Joseph Smith, Mohammed, etc.) since the worldview taught by Christ matches what we observe to be true in reality.

A good approach to an atheist might be to begin by asking them if they are good or bad. Of course, we are operating on the biblical assumption that the law is written on their hearts and their conscious is bearing witness to them concerning their moral condition (Romans 2:15).

Then the Christian might ask the atheist on what objective basis do they believe that they are either good or bad (assuming they give an answer). If they say the basis is a man-made system (say universal utilitarianism), then of course it is not objective, for if naturalism is true, nobody is compelled to follow the system of another person. If they say they have no objective moral basis (a consistent naturalist should say this), then ask them why they intuitively feel either good or bad. A universal moral standard can be denied verbally, but it is simply unlivable practically.

At this point, the Christian could share the fact that we are finite creatures, limited in the amount of knowledge we can obtain about reality, thus we must trust some authority. Naturalists who often openly deny any objective moral standard are postulating a system that we should intuitively know is false. This is a good time to offer a better and much more trustworthy authority - Jesus Christ. A man who came on the wings of hundreds of prophecies and who proved his divinity by rising from the dead (I Corinthians 15).

The atheist must see that Jesus Christ has made demands on his life. He has commanded every person to submit to his authority. I believe this is the leverage we need to show that everything in the world conforms to the worldview that Jesus taught. From universal morality, to the universal moral dilemma of mankind, to design in the universe, to the logical need of a first cause, it all makes sense when we start with Jesus and it all confirms exactly to what he has taught us is true about reality.

This is what I call a Practical (and evangelistic) Presuppositionalism. Thank you Francis Schaeffer.

(Photo by Brandon Robbins)