Challenge to Unbelief (1 of 6) – Worldviews in Collision

[00:00] The first lecture I’ve been asked to bring to you today is entitled Worldviews and Collision, which is something of a strange title. We’ll come back to the title after I’ve explained a little bit of what that’s all about.

[00:12] So putting that aside, what I would really like to do this afternoon is to talk to you about how we defend our Christian faith. And for those who may not share that Christian faith, to explain what we think is at stake here and what kinds of questions have to be answered when we get into religious disputes.

[00:29] And so let’s just begin by thinking about your next-door neighbor who doesn’t believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. That neighbor who thinks that Jesus was a good man, taught a lot of wonderful things about loving one another and being peacemakers and so forth, but the idea that he was the Son of God or he was God incarnate is just unacceptable to him. Or the idea of miracles is unacceptable to him. You can’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but we all know that dead men don’t rise. Or you may have a neighbor, say, on the other side, who doesn’t believe God created the heavens and the earth because, well, he’s not altogether sure there’s any reason to believe that there’s a God.

[01:07] And so we run into very practical, apologetical problems all the time like that. People who just don’t believe the things we do when it comes to religion. Now, how should we as Christians make a case for what we believe over against what your neighbor believes or disbelieves? How should we defend our Christian faith and the credibility of the Bible with them?

[01:34] That’s really the question, the overarching question that I’m posing for us in our conference today, and we’re going to take this in three different steps. First of all, I’m going to talk about the nature of the argument itself, Because I think one of the key reasons people are weak in defending the faith is they don’t know really what the problem is. They don’t know what game we’re playing. It’s like they prepare to play baseball and they show up to the stadium and, lo and behold, it’s a football game. If you don’t know the nature of the conflict, if you don’t know what’s really going on between the believer and the unbeliever, then it’s going to weaken you when it comes to giving a credible answer and to reducing your opponent’s position to absurdity or error.

[02:21] Secondly, we’re going to look at the certainty of Christianity. I’m going to try to give you reasons why we as Christians have philosophical certainty about the truth of Christianity. And then thirdly, we’ll talk about the futility of unbelief. And I would like to go through a series of problems that any unbeliever has, whether he or she is well-trained in philosophy or not, and hopefully then you’ll have a handle on the sorts of things you want to talk about and can talk about to show the truth of Christianity.

[02:54] So, now, what is the nature of the dispute? What’s going on when a Christian and a non-Christian start disputing with each other? Before I put something up on the board to pursue that, one more introductory remark.

[03:10] When I talk about arguments, when I talk about disputes, when I talk about conflict between the believer and the unbeliever, which we’ll have to be doing all afternoon, we are not talking about contentiousness. To argue with somebody means to exchange evidence and inferences. Okay? So I’ve got a case to make for my position or a case to make against your position. I’m going to argue with you because I’m offering evidence. I’m arguing in terms of inferences that I’ll be drawing. But argument does not mean in and of itself that we’re going to get nasty with each other. It doesn’t mean contention. We’re sharing different points of view and what we think supports those different points of view.

[03:54] So please remember that, because I don’t think it should be taken as the icing on the cake when we teach apologetics, that all of us need to learn to be courteous and polite with the people we argue with. And so when we talk about disputing and debating and arguing, if you understand by that the connotation of we’re getting really intense and we’re getting nasty, it’s getting kind of uncomfortable in the room because of all this, because of the personalities that are involved, then you’re not understanding what Christian apologetics is all about.

[04:28] You know, in the charter verse for Christian apologetics, in 1 Peter chapter 3, at verse 15, Peter tells us not only are we to be prepared at all times to give an answer to anyone who asks us a reason for the hope that is in us, He also says we’re to do it with gentleness and respect, with gentleness and respect.

[04:52] Some Christian debaters, I’m sorry to say, and I’m sorry when it’s true of myself, some Christian debaters, I’m afraid, give the impression that the reason we do what we do is because we want to demonstrate our ability to dominate our opponents, you know, that we are smarter than our opponents, that we’re more clever than our opponents. We can cut him to ribbons, you know.

[05:16] I sometimes have people talk about the debates that I have done, and they would like to say nice things. And I’m glad for that. I’d rather have nice things said than negative things said. But, you know, when people say, you know, you just really trumped on that guy, I sure hope they mean by that that your arguments were better than his, not that from a personality standpoint you really, you know, beat him up. As you see, the Prince of Peace is not in any sense defended when we don’t demonstrate the peacefulness that he gives in our hearts and is to be a fruit of his spirit in our lives. So, I will talk about dispute, conflict, debate, but I hope that you will not read me as talking about being nasty with people or contentions.

[06:03] Now back to the question finally. What is the nature of the dispute between the believer and the unbeliever? I’m going to try to illustrate this by using the board. I’m not a great…

[06:14] Okay, now what have I put up here on the board? That’s a picture of a face, right? Now don’t embarrass me. You knew that, didn’t you? I did not have to interpret this. You all knew that was a face. Okay. And now what have I put up here on the board? Another face. See how quick you guys get down? This is great. We’re going to do well.

[06:34] But I’m going to distinguish these two faces from one another by adding something on this one. What did I put on that face that’s different from the other face? A purple mustache. That’s right. Okay. Now, the difference between these two faces is what? The mustache. One face doesn’t have the mustache. The other face does have the mustache. And you’re thinking, what does this have to do with apologetics? Well, I’m afraid that many people think that the difference between being a believer and an unbeliever is that the believer and the unbeliever share all sorts of things in common, except the believer has a little bit more. The believer’s got a mustache. The unbeliever’s got a face, the believer’s got a face, but the believer’s face also has the mustache. And so, in a sense, when you’re going to argue about faces, as it were, You take everything that you have in common, the eyebrows, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, ears, hair, whatever, and you then look at what’s left over, the mustache, and you say, okay, all we’ve got to argue about is the mustache.

[07:46] If you think that’s the difference between being a Christian and being a non-Christian, then your approach to apologetics is going to be greatly weakened. It won’t be impossible, but it will be very, very weak, this defense that you offer. Because we are not talking about holding to a few more beliefs from the people around about us. Apologetic is not simply a dispute over a few particular premises.

[08:15] It’s like, well, we all believe the world is of such a nature. We all believe human nature is in this way or that. We all have certain things about history that we hold in common. We share all of this stuff with unbelievers. We don’t have any differences of opinion on these things, except that we add to that that Jesus rose from the dead, he was the Son of God, and God created the world. Things like that. We just have a little mustache that we add to the face.

[08:41] Or let me change this from faces, and let these two circles stand for the set of beliefs that a person has. And now, within one set of beliefs, Let’s say we have the unbelievers set of beliefs. What does the unbeliever believe? Well, all sorts of things. And he believes that the Dodgers did not win the World Series last summer. It’s true. Which is a shame, but it’s true. Okay. He may believe that today is Saturday. He may believe that salt dissolves in water. He may believe that Washington crossed the Delaware. He may believe all sorts of things. I’m not going to put all of them in a circle. I’m just going to kind of put a few representative beliefs there.

[09:29] We’ll call them A, B, and C. Now, what does the believer believe? Does the believer, the Christian, believe that the Dodgers won the World Series last summer? No, he doesn’t believe that, so he disbelieves that. The believer believes that Washington crossed the Delaware. The historical truth believes that salt dissolves in water. And then, of course, we would have to add a number of things to both of these. But one thing we will not add to the unbeliever circle that we do put in the believer circle are certain things like the deity of Christ, and that he performed miracles, and that God created the world.

[10:09] And so when you look at these two circles, you remember the two faces in the illustration I started with. If you think that the dispute between the believer and the unbeliever is simply over what I’ve put in here as the D-E-F issues and all the rest is the same. So all we’re doing is adding a mustache to the faith. Then I think you’re approaching apologetics all wrong. And you’re approaching it all wrong because it is not the case that the dispute between the believer and the unbeliever is simply over D-E-N-F.

[10:43] As long as we think we can combine the approaches of believer and unbeliever on all the things that they seem to have in common, we’ll agree with them on A, B, and C, and then on that common platform of the A, B, C’s of what we hold in common, we’ll then approach the question of whether D or E or F are true or not, then we’ll be really missing the mark.

[11:09] What’s the alternative? I’m saying, Dr. Bahnsen, if it’s not just a matter of individual belief, The alternative is what we have between the believer and the unbeliever is a dispute over an entire world view. Not just a dispute over a particular fact of history, did Jesus rise from the dead, or a dispute over its origin, but everything else we agree on. We have a dispute over entire world view, and I’m going to have to explain what a world view is, But obviously worldview is more than just the particulars that stand out when you combine these two that are questionable.

[11:49] You see, we have a dispute over A and B and C with the unbeliever as well. And once we realize that, we’ll realize what’s at stake in defending the faith. When we realize that we have to argue about the entire worldview, then we’re going to be making some progress as Christians.

[12:10] So I have a neighbor who doesn’t believe that God created the heavens and earth because he doesn’t believe in God. But my neighbor does believe that it would be a good idea for me not to drive my car across his lawn. He does believe that I should respect his property. He believes that there are basic principles of decency. That’s why we all live in this neighborhood and we try to protect each other and so forth. We don’t believe in looting and killing and so forth. And so I think to myself, well, I agree with him on that. I don’t think we should be destroying each other’s property. I don’t think we should be killing and looting and so forth. So at least we’ve got that in common. See, we agree on that.

[12:49] And we agree that there’s a world around us that has physical characteristics. And we agree that we can trust our senses. And that we can reason with each other and be logical. And now what we have to do, we have all these other things in common. Now we come down to, well, but is Jesus the Son of God? did he rise from the dead, or did God create the world, whatever the issue may be. That isn’t the case.

[13:14] Because you see, if he doesn’t believe God created the world, my neighbor doesn’t have the right to say that it’s wrong for me to drive my car across his lawn, or to rob, or rape, or burn his house down, or whatever. These standards of decency, as he might call them, that it appears we have in common, we don’t really have in common from a philosophical perspective, because he has no reason. He has no support or warrant for these standards of decency.

[13:49] So, if I’m talking to an atheist neighbor, I might start talking to him about ethics. I might start talking to him about what he thinks people should do, how they should relate to each other and treat each other. And he will be inclined to say, well, we agree pretty much on that. I mean, that’s not the problem here. And at that point, whether I understand Christian apologetics and what’s at stake or not, it’s going to be tested. And if I say, well, I guess you’re right. We really don’t disagree on that. Let’s go on to what we—I’m going to say, no, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I want to talk about that for a minute. Because I’d like to talk to you as an atheist about this idea that people shouldn’t be killing each other or raping each other or stealing from each other.

[14:29] I’d like to know, on your worldview, on your outlook on life, why is that? Why shouldn’t they? Because given your approach to things, it would appear to me that it would be acceptable to do anything you want. Acceptable. Morally acceptable. It may not work out real well because your neighbors gang up on you and kill you in return. I mean, it may not be the most prudential thing to do. It may not work out well for you. It may not be pragmatic, but from a moral standpoint, I don’t see how you can condemn me if what I want to do is drive my car across your lawn tomorrow morning on the way to work.

[15:10] You see, when I talk to him in this way, I’m telling him, we don’t really share philosophically all those things which in practice it appears that we share. None of us drive across each other’s lawn. We don’t take out guns and settle our disputes in the streets here in this neighborhood and so forth. And so you might think, well, all of us have a good reason to live that way. But what I want to challenge you to see is you don’t have a good reason to hold to that conviction. You don’t have a good reason for living in this way.

[15:42] And what I want to encourage you to think about is you do know in your heart of hearts the God that you say doesn’t exist. And because you know this God, you have to live in God’s world and according to God’s standards. Granted, you’re going to fight against that. Granted, you don’t like that. But in the end, you are always giving evidence that you do believe in this God. The very God that, by his own grace, I have to say in all humility, I try to serve, and I’ve been saved by his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[16:12] The dispute between the believer and the unbeliever is not over random, particular premises of a religious nature. the dispute is over everything. I think if I had started with that sentence, you might have thought I had gotten just a little extreme, you know. This cheerleading for Christianity has led this man to be a little mad. He says, no, we disagree with you over everything. In principle, we disagree with the unbeliever over everything. In principle. And that’s why we want to make so much of the things that we appear to have in common. Does that sound a little paradoxical? Let me say it again. Because we disagree with the unbeliever over everything in principle, we want to pay attention to those things that we appear to have in common.

[17:04] You have an unbelieving neighbor, let’s get out of the area of ethics for a minute. Do you have an unbelieving neighbor who talks to you, say, about principles of economics, or about the local opera, or about raising children, or what the meaning of human life is, or how we deal with suffering? These are common issues. You don’t have to be a philosopher to get into those things. You talk about those things with people at work, with your neighbors, and so forth.

[17:29] and many times what your unbelieving friend or neighbor or relative says you agree with or what you say they agree with but then of course many times you don’t and the temptation is for you to think well we’ve got this body of agreed upon premises and then we got these little things that stick in there what we don’t agree on so we have to work on those things we disagree on so we can bring ourselves into closer proximity to one another agreeing on more things than disagreeing I’m suggesting what you should be looking at is those things you agree on and then asking whether you really do agree or whether the unbeliever can make sense of that agreement. Can the unbeliever make sense of those things he takes for granted and that you would grant as well?

[18:18] Later on this afternoon, we’re going to be talking about some common problems that will look a little more philosophical, but they really are practical and you can learn to use them practically. But one of them is the uniformity of nature, as it’s commonly put. That’s not usually the way philosophers talk about it, but the whole notion of inductive reasoning and the way in which the world operates and what we can expect from it. Can we expect that the future will be like the past? Can we expect that if salt dissolved in water yesterday, that under the same circumstances, the only difference being time and place, that salt will dissolve in water tomorrow? The unbeliever believes that, and the believer believes that.

[18:59] You say, okay, well then, okay, we can put that aside. That’s something we agree on. Let’s go on. No, no, no, stop. Because you agree on that, but in principle you don’t agree on anything, then you’ve got to deal with that.

[19:11] You’ve got to ask the unbeliever, well, how do you make sense of this uniformity of nature, this conviction about the future being like the past? Now, I can make sense of it, and I can make sense of you believing in that and denying the God that I think makes nature uniform. I can make sense of all of that, but I don’t see that you can make sense of any of it. On your worldview, which says that basically the universe is random and chance, is not subject to law-like explanation, on your worldview, you can’t make sense of what we seem to take for granted that the future will be like the past.

[19:49] So let me repeat my point. Because the believer and the unbeliever, in principle disagree on every point, then what we do in apologetics is we look at what is very strange, really, the apparent agreement between the believer and the unbeliever, and we challenge the unbeliever to make sense of what we hold in common. We challenge him to make sense of his moral absolutes, to make sense of his belief in the uniformity of nature. Now, when we take this approach to apologetics, what we are recognizing is that worldviews are in collision. Worldviews, not just particular beliefs, but entire systems, philosophies of life, worldviews are in collision.

[20:35] If you have your Bible with you, would you turn with me, please, to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 1, and here I’d like us to pick up on Paul’s understanding of the relationship between belief and unbelief. We really could pursue this by reading the entire chapter as well as chapter 2, but I’m just going to focus on verses 18 through 21. Paul says, For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishly, but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. For it stands written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning will I bring to nothing. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?

[21:20] Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Now, how does Paul see the difference between the believer and the unbeliever? Does Paul reduce this to the idea that they really have everything in common except for a few religious particulars, the deity of Jesus and his rising from the dead, etc.? No, Paul tells us that the word of the cross is to those who perish foolish. And yet, unto us who are saved, it is the power of God. A completely different evaluation of the same claim. The world sees it as ridiculous. Those who are believers see it as God’s power.

[22:18] They glory in it. Paul says, quoting Isaiah now, that the Bible, God’s word tells us that God destroys the wisdom of the wise and brings to nothing the discernment of the discerning. And so Paul says that the wise cannot be found and the debater of this age will be shamed because God makes foolish the wisdom of the world. And then verse 21 again shows the antithesis between the outlook of the Christian and the outlook of the non-Christian. Seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God. Get the irony there, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom, not through God’s wisdom, through its philosophy, if you will, through its outlook, through its values and priorities, the world through its wisdom knew not God, so it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of preaching.

[23:15] Does that mean that it really is foolish? No, because Paul’s just said, those who hold to the outlook of the world, they are the fools. You can’t even find a debater that isn’t, you know, shamed, you know, when he holds the worldly premises and outlook. He says, the foolishness, as the world sees it, the foolishness of preaching saves those who believe. Seeing that Jews ask for signs and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified unto Jews a stumbling block and unto Gentiles foolishness. But, unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

[23:56] And then we get the overall summary of this point. Paul says, because the foolishness of God is wiser than this, and the weakness of God is stronger than this. What the world calls wisdom, God calls foolish. What God’s people, led by his word, call wisdom, the world calls foolish.

[24:20] You get the point here. What you have here is an overall difference in evaluation and approach. The world follows one kind of philosophy. God’s people follow another kind of philosophy. And when those two philosophies look at each other, they hurl the word foolish at each other. Well, you’re a fool to believe that. Now, we may not actually hear that word being used, but you know that attitude is there.

[24:50] You know that your unbelieving relatives and your neighbors and you’re in school, you know that those who don’t follow Christian philosophy think those of us who do are a bunch of Sunday school idiots. We’re just like little children. How on earth could you believe such foolish things? You believe in creation. You believe in the deity of Christ. You believe in the Trinity and so forth.

[25:11] When I was in graduate school in philosophy, whether people used the word fool or not, that kind of thing was said all the time. I had one professor who would look right at me in our ethics seminar and really feel the Christian gospel. Kind of like, how could a grown man believe these sorts of things? And you know what? When I go out and I speak about the philosophy of unbelievers, whether it’s Jean-Paul Sartre or Bertrand Russell or whoever it may be, I have a tendency to talk the same way about them.

[25:42] I present what their beliefs are. I try to be accurate. I hope that I’m accurate. I try to be fair with my opponents. I don’t want to misrepresent them. But after I lay out what they believe, you stand back and you say, can you believe a grown man would believe such things? It’s just incredible.

[25:59] Let’s stop for a minute here and let’s think about evolution. It’s a great illustration. because I suppose that there’s one thing, one anti-Christian position that you can almost take for granted in the modern world among unbelievers is they’re going to believe in evolution. There are other things as well, but this is widespread. And it’s so widespread that people who have never read so much as a book or a pamphlet and in many cases, I dare say, even a paragraph of the opposite point of view, people who have done no research whatsoever will nevertheless say with all the confidence in the world that we know man evolved from lower life forms.

[26:41] And when I run into people like that and begin trying not to cut them to ribbons or to be rude or anything, but I say, okay, now let me see if I understand what you’re saying. On your outlook, at one time there was nothing and then there was a big bang and then there was something. Did I have that right? Okay.

[26:58] And then after that, this something, this material, whatever it was, that was unliving, inorganic, started living. Life just started. Oh, okay. And now let me get you right. And after the nothing that became something, the immaterial that became living material went on a few more years, then it became intelligent living stuff. So non-intelligent begat intelligence. Is that right? Oh, okay. And then after that, intelligent, amoral, or non-moral material became moral. You say, yeah. And when they say these things, you look at them, do you have any idea of what you’re, you’re asking me to believe something came from nothing, life came from non-life, intelligence came from non-intelligence, and morality came from non-morality. Yeah. They’re like, we just take that for granted, you know?

[27:58] and I look at that and I say I cannot believe a grown man would believe such a silly thing then I go on to point out that in every other area of their life they dispute those very premises they do not believe that life comes from non-life they do not believe that life comes from non-intelligence morality comes from non-morality illustrations of that are given and sometimes you know, God by the Holy Spirit opens their eyes to see the foolishness of it and sometimes they just swallow those kind of contradictions without any problem Now, my point here, later I’m going to get into particular things you might say to unbelievers, but my point here is, don’t you see what’s going on?

[28:36] Paul says the world has a philosophy, and in terms of that philosophy, when it hears the preaching of the gospel, it says, boy, that’s foolish. And Christians have a philosophy. We’ve received from God, we believe, from his own holy word. And in terms of that philosophy, when the world lays out what it believes, we say, we can’t believe people would say those things. thing. The one calls the other foolish, the other calls the one foolish. They trade these insults, if you will, calling one another fool. Paul tells us that Christians and non-Christians are not standing on a common ground and then having to just settle these, you know, little differences over the mustache on the face. He’s saying that one says to the other, you have no face. He’s right, he’s wrong. Turn in your Bibles to Colossians 2 verse 8.

[29:29] Paul says, take heed lest there shall be anyone who makes spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. This is a command just as clearly a command as don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, don’t kill, just as clear as the command, love your neighbor as yourself, just as clear as the command, don’t lie to one another, Paul says here, as a command, you be careful lest anyone rob you through his philosophy, take heed, lest anyone, my translation says to make spoil of you, the word in Greek actually means to love you, to find somebody in the back alley and to roll them for their money. Take heed lest anybody mug you, anyone rob you by means of his philosophy, even bane deceit, which is after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world.

[30:34] Paul here say you should avoid philosophy. I know a lot of fundamentalist Christians who would get on me for getting a PhD in philosophy because this verse tells you you should not be studying philosophy. Paul doesn’t say avoid philosophy here, does it? He says, avoid a certain kind of philosophy. I would suggest to you that the best way to avoid that kind of philosophy is to study the subject of philosophy so you know what you’re talking about. It’s not the only way, but that would be a good way to do it. He says, be careful that you not be robbed through philosophy that’s after the tradition of men.

[31:13] Your outlook, your philosophy of life, your worldview is not to be dictated by what men take for granted. What they commonly accept, what is culturally the trend, their traditions. Be careful of philosophy after the tradition of men and after the rudiments of the world. This word rudiments is hard to translate into English because the Greek word goes a lot of different ways and carries a lot more connotation than most of the English words we have available. Rudiments, I don’t think, is really very helpful. The Greek word stoicheia is used elsewhere, even in the Bible, for the ABCs of learning, the elementary principles.

[31:56] And so in some translations, you may have, well, say, the elements of the world, that which is foundational in the world. Or, if we could use the philosophical term, that which is presupposed by the world. Those things which are non-negotiable, most foundational, the elements of learning in the world. Be careful of worldly basic assumptions. Be careful of philosophy after the traditions and the trends of men. And then Paul says something else, and not after Christ.

[32:30] but you see if you have this idea that Christian and non-Christian are facing off and all they have difference between them is the mustache then what Paul says here doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because Paul’s suggesting there is a philosophy that is after Christ and there’s a philosophy that’s after the traditions of men and you have to be told that you not be robbed by the one and the way not to be robbed by the traditions of men is to follow that philosophy which is after Christ What’s Paul talking about being robbed of?

[33:04] Well, back up to verse 3 in the same chapter, and notice Paul says that in Christ, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited. In Christ, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited. Now, be careful that you not be robbed. Because if your philosophy is after Christ, then you have a foundation for wisdom and knowledge, because all of it is deposited in him. But if your philosophy is not after Christ, but after the presuppositions of the world, after the traditions of men, then you’re going to be robbed. Then you’re going to lose that great value that we have in faith.

[33:44] I want to share this personally with you for a minute. One of my concerns when I see Christians engage in apologetics and when I see different schools of Christian apologetics kind of wrangling with each other over the proper approach and who’s got the best, you know, material and so forth. I’m afraid that when we defend the faith, we can sometimes give the impression that Jesus is a very limited Savior. That is to say, when we defend the faith, we can easily give the impression to people that their lives are okay as far as they go, but they need to add Jesus so they can get to heaven. That is true. They do need to add Jesus so they’re going to get to heaven.

[34:25] And it is my concern that people go to heaven. It’s my concern that they are born again and they belong to the family of God. And I’m not minimizing for a minute that the greatest, you know, question that has to be resolved for a man living or a woman living in this world is where will you spend eternity and how will you do so? So I’m not cutting any of that off. But you see, here’s the problem.

[34:49] If we say that your life is okay intellectually, your life is okay in terms of your social relations, or economics, or your entertainment, whatever it may be, emotionally, psychologically, your life’s okay as far as it goes, but it’s just, you’ve got this narrow little area that’s messed up, you’re not going to go to heaven when you die, then we haven’t understood the full saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In apologetics, I don’t want to, and I don’t want my students to give the impression to the unbeliever that his thinking process is not in need of salvation. Your thinking process is perfectly okay. You can come up with very good philosophies as far as they go, and all I want you to do is put a mustache on the face now, and then you’ll have it all put together.

[35:40] I want to say you are faceless. You are without hope. Not just in the afterlife. You are without hope right now. In every aspect of your being, in every aspect of your conduct, your thoughts, your feelings, you are lost. Lost.

[36:04] Doesn’t God make foolish the wisdom of this world? If you do not have Christ, As the foundation of your philosophy, you are robbed of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. You could not, in principle, know anything were it not for Christ.

[36:27] Now, I realize we have questions that will come up. Well, then, how is it that unbelievers do have knowledge? Why is it that unbelievers do lead lives that, in some cases, are, you know, fairly decent from a standpoint of social interaction and so forth? And we’ll answer that. But you have to understand that Paul tells us that in principle, those who do not have a philosophy after Christ, in whom are deposited all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, are fools. Those who follow the tradition of men are not able to know anything.

[37:02] Well, we’ll talk about the relationship of philosophy and faith, but I think what Paul is saying here is that if you do not begin with Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited, And if you’d rather follow the presuppositions of the world, then what will end up is that you are robbed. You are empty of those treasures. And we’re going to talk about what it means to take our presuppositions on faith. I want to make it very clear that that’s not an arbitrary thing. It’s like, well, you can jump this way, you can jump that way, and it’s all a matter of how you’re feeling today. And then from there, you develop your philosophy. I think it’s more than that.

[37:38] It is true that you have a philosophy that’s developed out of a heart that submits to Christ, or a philosophy that develops out of a heart that doesn’t affect what I was just going on to say, based on Colossians 2, that in Christ all the treasures and wisdom and knowledge are deposited, is that in Proverbs 1, verse 7, we are told that the beginning, the starting point, the head, in Hebrew actually, the rosh of knowledge, is the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is not the end point of our reasoning process.

[38:12] It’s not as though we’re reasoning perfectly all right as we go. We just need to take the final step, put the mustache on the face to go back to my illustration. And then we have the fear of the Lord and knowledge is as though the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It’s at the outset. But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

[38:34] those who will not bow the knee those who will not submit to the claims of Jesus Christ have as the only alternative according to the Bible foolishness so that kind of wraps things up and brings us back to 1 Corinthians 1 Paul says the world looks at our philosophy as foolish and those who have the wisdom of God see what the world says as foolish What is going on in an apologetical encounter is that two different approaches to life, two different outlooks, and all of reality and human conduct and history and everything are colliding with each other. We have worldviews that are in collision.

[39:21] Now, I told you I would give you an explanation of what a worldview is. Let me be a little more technical here. When I speak of a worldview, I’m talking about a network of presuppositions. I’m going to say more than this, but let’s just get started with a network of presuppositions. What’s a presupposition? Well, that’s an elementary assumption. It’s a foundational conviction. Presuppositions are that which underlies all of the rest of our reasoning, if you will, or that which is at the center of our web of beliefs. And a worldview is a network of such presuppositions.

[39:57] People don’t have just one basic assumption. They have quite a few. And it’s an interesting question I’m not going to get into this afternoon, but what is the relationship of their presuppositions to one another? The fact is, everyone has certain fundamental convictions about the nature of reality, the nature of man, man’s place in the universe, basic presuppositions about how a man should live his life and how he knows what he knows. A worldview is a network of such presuppositions. By calling it a network, I want to emphasize that it’s not one by one, but it’s in some way an interrelated group of fundamental assumptions. But we can say more about these particular presuppositions.

[40:43] They are not verified by the methods of natural science. And the methods of natural science can help us to decide whether salt dissolves in water and under what conditions it involves the water. The methods of natural science can help us determine whether Washington crossed the Delaware. The methods of natural science can help us determine the price of eggs in the market today. But the methods of natural science cannot help us determine the philosophical assumptions that underlie natural science itself. Natural science is not its own foundation. So what I’m saying is that everyone Everyone has a network of presuppositions which is not verified by the methods of natural science.

[41:30] And yet, we might tend to say, oh yeah, well we know the sorts of things that aren’t verified by natural science. We read about them at the checkout counter at the store all the time, you know. We have these fantastic things about, lady sees her grandfather on a UFO, you know. We say, well, can this be verified?

[41:49] No, it can’t and so forth, and we say, oh yeah, okay, well if it can’t be verified by natural science and we poo-poo it. But not everything that cannot be verified by natural science is in the loony tombs category. There are other things that can’t be verified by natural science, and they are very important and very somber issues. Those of you who are philosophers know that Aristotle dealt with them and Kant dealt with them and others, and they have to do with the fundamental category, the fundamental or transcendental concepts in terms of which we all think and relate our experiences and live our lives. A worldview is a network of presuppositions which are not verified by the methods of natural science because these presuppositions tell us what natural science should be and what it should do and why it’s warranted in doing it. These are what underlie natural science itself.

[42:45] These presuppositions bind together everything else we believe. These presuppositions tell us what to make of our experiences, how to respond to them. Everything that we claim to know and every experience we have is interpreted and interrelated in terms of these presuppositions. So going back here to the board, we have these two circles representing worldviews. It’s not as though every belief stands out there just willy-nilly, as we say in there. it can take any position in the circle at once. As a matter of fact, people have central convictions in their lives, what I’m calling presuppositions. And I’ve said they’re a network in such presuppositions.

[43:34] So here I’m going to put A, B, and C, just for illustrative purposes, in the very middle of the circle. And then, coming out from these central convictions, they have other convictions. And these are related to one another in various ways. That’s why I’m trying, if this is beginning to look like a spider web, then I’m accomplishing my task, okay? It’ll make me feel good to tell me, oh, that looks like a spider web. Now, the closer you get to the center of a person’s belief structure, the more tenacious that person is about protecting his or her beliefs. The further you get from the center, or if you will, the closer you are to the periphery of this web of beliefs, you will find people more inclined to give up their beliefs. And I told you already, I don’t believe the Dodgers won the World Series last summer.

[44:30] Also said I was very sad about that. Now, I happen to think I’m right. I don’t think I’m wrong about that. However, you can much more readily get me to see that I was wrong about that if I were wrong about that. It would be much easier for me to give that up and say, oh, I must have been thinking about two seasons ago. I guess you’re right. You’ve got it right here in the paper. It would be much easier to get me to change my mind about something that’s out here on the periphery of my belief than it would on the very center. For instance, that human life is no more valuable than that of a dog. Now, on that, I’m going to hold on a lot longer, and I would trust because I’m a Christian, I would never concede that kind of thing. But there wouldn’t be a whole lot at stake in saying that I was wrong about the history of the World Series and my favorite team, the Dodgers. So, nod your heads if you get this point. You understand what I’m saying? That on the outside edge of a person’s web of beliefs, we more readily give up our beliefs, and we do so on pretty much simple eyeball inspection. You know, if I got up this morning and I said, well, it’s Sunday, I’ve got to get ready to go to church and so forth, and then someone came in and showed me a calendar and said, now, here’s your plane ticket, Dr. Bahnsen, I should remember. I said, oh, okay, okay, I got ahead of myself. That wouldn’t be all that hard.

[45:53] simple eyeball facts and experiences would dissuade you. But if someone wanted to say, you no longer are living on planet Earth, you have been transferred during the night to Venus, it’s going to take a whole lot more than showing me a calendar and just a few interesting eyeballs and spectacles to get me to change my mind about that. Now, hopefully, unbelievers and believers can both see that that’s the way people reason. They have what is sometimes called a web of belief. And what I mean by a worldview is a network of presupposition, not verified by the methods of natural science, but in terms of which all the rest of the web is developed, in terms of which we relate all of our experiences and all the things we claim to know.

[46:45] Now, let me give you seven characteristics. This is not necessarily the only way to explain it, but seven characteristics of worldviews so that you are real sure of what I’m talking about. First of all, worldviews are held by faith. They are not held because natural science or eyeball inspection has shown it to be true.

[47:06] Some people believe that the physical world is real. Others don’t. I know you don’t run into many of them. I don’t know. Maybe in San Francisco you do. But there are people, Hindus, who will tell you that that’s an illusion. That what we think we are touching, seeing, tasting, and so forth is just an illusion. That all is maya, actually. All is illusion. And that when all is said and done, reality is one and is not many. And because reality is one, any experience I have or any conviction I have and assumes the manyness, discreteness, or separation of things is misleading.

[47:49] What are you going to do with the guy who says, hey, that’s solid reality in the Hindu who says that’s an illusion. Are you going to use eyeball inspection to settle that dispute? What’s going to happen? I go out there and I say to the Hindu, hey, look, here’s my proof. That’s real. The Hindu’s going to do what? They’ll say, well, one more illusion.

[48:10] you can’t settle a dispute about fundamental presuppositions as it is the nature of reality or the nature of knowledge I could have used a different kind of illustration or the nature of ethics, human conduct or human life and dignity and man’s place in the universe and on and on and on those fundamental issues of life are not settled by looking and hearing and tasting and touching they are philosophical issues in that sense they are held by faith Secondly, and this is really important, everyone’s got a worldview. Everyone has a worldview. Even people who say they don’t have one, have one. Even people who have never thought about it, have one. Even people who haven’t thought about it, say, oh, I wouldn’t want one of those, have one. Everyone has a worldview.

[49:03] Now, I’ve got a worldview. Well, as the degree says, I’m a professional philosopher. Well, that may not surprise you. You say, well, yeah, you guys think about those things all the time, right? No, not really. We watch baseball games and eat Chinese food and do other things, too. But we do think about philosophical issues. So it doesn’t surprise people that we have worldviews.

[49:23] But you see, my next-door neighbor, who is a gardener, has a worldview, too, who dropped out of high school. Education is not the prerequisite for a worldview. Being human is the prerequisite for having a worldview. Every human being has an outlook on life that tells him or her in some reference-ready way, sometimes contradictory way, not well thought out, not sophisticated, not very bright, perhaps. But everybody’s got some view of reality, some view of how we know what we know, some view of how we should live our lives, some view about human dignity and man’s place in the universe. Everybody’s got a view.

[50:05] The difference between the philosopher and the non-philosopher, as I teach my students, is not that one asks these questions and the other doesn’t. It’s just that one tries to do it self-conscious. That is, to the degree that you stop and say, you know, I need to think about these presuppositions for a minute. Now, what and why should I believe what I believe? To the degree that you do that sort of thing, you’ll be called a philosopher. And the fact that not everybody stops and self-consciously tries to decide what the nature of reality is and how we know what we know and how we should live our lives doesn’t mean they don’t have a worldview, which means they haven’t got a very good one. They haven’t thought it through. They aren’t very aware of the belief.

[50:49] But see, if my neighbor tells me I only go around once in life, so I grab for all the gusto I can get, he might not think he’s a philosopher, but that’s a philosophy, isn’t it? That’s a view of life. That’s a view of human dignity, not a very high one, but it is a particular view of human dignity and what we should do as we live here, and what is of highest value, pleasure, whatever. And also what the nature of a human life is. Live after you die, you only go around once, and so forth. So everyone has a worldview. Thirdly, these worldviews held by faith, and everyone has one.

[51:25] Thirdly, a worldview is like a window on the world, if you will. One person put it that way. The worldview is that by which you see everything, the other metaphor that I used for figure of speech is that of a web, the worldview is that by which you develop the rest of the web of your head. So that to the degree that your worldview is wrong, let’s say it’s smudged with dirt, to the degree that your worldview is wrong, you don’t see the world very well, do you?

[51:54] I have a friend, so I won’t mention, you may hear the tape, I have a friend whose car windshield is always filthy. I hesitate to criticize because, you know, I have to work hard to keep my house and my car and everything up. But I mean, this guy, he’s the exception to the rule on the bad end of it. I mean, I get in the car and I have times when I want to get out of the car and say, I don’t see how you can see. I’m worried that you’re driving. If your world is all smudged with error and sin and so forth then it’s not going to be a very safe drive is it? You’re not going to see the world real well. There are going to be a lot of things that you miss. Worldview is the window through which we see everything in our lives.

[52:43] I believe that when the Bible comes into our experience and we believe it and when God by the power of the Spirit changes our heart we start cleaning up that windshield so that we can see the world better. Never gets perfectly clean in his life, I know that. But you certainly know the difference between a windshield that’s been cleaned at the gas station with a few smudges left and one that’s never been at the gas station to be cleaned. Worldview is like a window on the world.

[53:13] Fourthly, a worldview involves religious commitment. This is not just a parlor game or academic debate. Worldviews are held with passion. They’re held with conviction. They’re held tenaciously by people. Again, people don’t always know self-consciously what their worldviews are, but I’ll tell you, when you scratch them in just the right place, you start getting an idea, you’re getting down to fundamentals with these people. Now they’re really in touch.

[53:43] I read this last week, in all places in a computer magazine, somebody had written an article previously that was critical of transvestite pressing. and didn’t think that should be promoted or discussed or something in the magazine. And so somebody else now wrote to deal with this Puritan, you know, and say, I’m disgusted that you would criticize anybody else’s beliefs or convictions. And you know what I’m going to do if I get home in time? I’m going to write and say, I’m disgusted that you’re disgusted at that guy’s conviction. Because I don’t think we should be disgusted with anything.

[54:22] I mean, religious commitment. You see, here’s a person who is so committed to the idea that it’s different strokes for different folks, so sold out for his relativism, that he gets angry when you cross that, when you dare to think there’s a right or a wrong. Yeah, I know, it’s self-contradictory, because he dares to think he’s right in criticizing you for being wrong about there being right wrong. Nevertheless, my point is a worldview is held with some kind of strength of conviction. It’s not the sort of thing a person gives up. Like, did the Dodgers win the World Series? Oh, I was wrong on that. Okay, I was wrong on that. No, they hold it very strongly.

[55:03] Fifthly, the worldview is somewhat like a roof over all of the different rooms in our life, if you will. The worldview, you see, brings everything together. We have our academic lives, we have our family lives, our economic lives, religious lives, liturgically anyway. We have our lives in terms of society, politics, entertainment, whatever. All those different rooms and all the different things we know, biologically, physically, economically, historically. and the worldview brings it all together. The worldview, you see, is like the roof over all of it.

[55:47] But then, sixthly, on the other hand, the worldview is like the foundation for this as well because it’s on the basis of the worldview that we believe what we do about our entertainment or about history or about economics or about family life or what have you. The worldview is both foundational as well as the capstone or the roof over everything.

[56:10] And then seventhly, the worldview is made up of views about reality, knowledge, and ethics. I want to make it very clear. A person’s worldview is not just what is the world like or how do we know what we know or how should we live our lives.

[56:28] Because it turns out, if I had time to argue, I think I can demonstrate this for you, it’s impossible to hold an epistemological view, a view about how man knows or what man knows, also holding certain views about what is real. And it’s impossible to hold views about what is real without having certain systemological views that go along with that, views about the theory of knowledge. So a worldview has all of these in it. The nature of reality, how we know what we know, and how we should live our lives. And the last thing I’d like to get across in this first lecture is you have to understand that the worldview of the believer and the worldview of the unbeliever are in collision with each other. Every unbeliever’s got a worldview, even if he doesn’t think he does, and every Christian’s got a worldview, and sadly they sometimes don’t think they do, because we don’t do philosophy. But every individual, remember what’s the prerequisite for having a worldview? Being a human being.

[57:26] Not educated necessarily, not of this or that religious conviction, just being a human being. because you’ve got to believe something about the world in which you live, how you know what you know, and how you should live your life. The Bible would tell us that Christians approach their worldview, Christians approach their philosophy of life in a particular way which stands diametrically opposed to the way non-Christians do. I’d like to characterize that for you in just a few minutes.

[57:52] First of all, Christians attempt to answer questions humbly before God and obediently to his revelation. When a Christian tries to settle a question about what is real, how I know what I know, how I should live my life, the Christian’s aim is to do so in a way that is humble before God and therefore obedient to his revelation.

[58:16] By contrast, the non-Christian approach to philosophy attempts to answer questions, as we say, autonomously. What is autonomy? Autonomy is made up of two Greek words that mean self and law. He answers questions as though he’s a law for himself, or in a way that shows that he believes himself to be self-sufficient. He doesn’t need to refer to the supernatural. And in that sense, he is not humble before God. He would, at best, take his position next to God, and of course, at worst, would say there is no God to answer to at all. The Christian approach to philosophy answers questions humbly before God and obediently to his revelation.

[59:01] The non-Christian attempts to be a law unto himself. He has a real desire for freedom. He promotes his own self-sufficiency. And he doesn’t think he needs God to tell him what to believe or what to do. In fact, from the non-Christian standpoint, it makes perfectly good sense to say that if I’m going to believe in God, God’s going to have to prove himself to them.

[59:24] What does that tell you? What does that tell you just about the nature of his world? That the unbeliever considers his own existence, his own reasoning, and his own lifestyle perfectly all right as far as they go, and if God wants to have a piece of the action, he’s going to have to fit in to the unbeliever’s way of thinking and doing things. The unbeliever, you see, automatically assumes that he is above God in authority. Now, if you put it to him and say, oh, you think you’re above God, he might say, no, no, that isn’t true, but if I’m going to believe in God, he’s going to have to prove himself to me. You see, he doesn’t want to say that he’s putting himself above God, but in practice, that’s what he’s doing.

[60:09] Does the believer approach things that way? The believer comes from the Bible and says, well, God teaches certain things here. Let’s say that homosexuality is wrong or that women being ordained is wrong and so forth. And God, if you make a good case for that, then I’ll believe it. And the believer says, Lord, whatever you say, I submit you. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. We don’t cross-examine God.

[60:38] Remember how Jesus told Satan? In fact, he’s quoting the Old Testament law here. you are not to put the Lord your God to the test. You understand who the Lord is. You don’t test him. You don’t try him. You don’t make him verify himself to you. You simply bow the knee and bow the heart and say, Lord, whatever you say.

[61:00] So there’s a completely different approach to things between the Christian and the non-Christian. I hope by this time, after an hour’s lecture, you can see how far we have gotten away from the idea that the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is the mustache on the face. That’s not it. It’s a question of who has a face at all.

[61:22] Secondly, the Christian approach to philosophy does not begin without Scripture, to bring it in after preliminary matters have been established. When the Christian approaches philosophical questions, he doesn’t say, well, let me get my bearings here. Let me figure out, you know, the answer to Plato and Aristotle and Kant and all these guys. And when I find out what the nature of knowledge is and reality and so forth, then I’ll pick up the Bible and open it up and try to fit it in. That isn’t a Christian approach to philosophy.

[61:53] And in principle, no true child of God wants to do that, although sadly there are some children of God that are a bit rebellious and confused on this point. They teach other schools of apologetics, I think, sadly. They have the idea that we first of all prove the credibility of the Bible, and then we submit wholeheartedly to the Bible. And I don’t think it really works that way. In fact, and I certainly don’t believe it works that way when they try to present their arguments. But nevertheless, the Christian wants to hear God from the very beginning. He doesn’t want to integrate what God has to say later on.

[62:28] Whereas the Bible tells us that the unbeliever hinders the truth in unrighteousness. Rather than wanting to be open to the truth of God from the very outset, the unbeliever, Paul says, suppresses it, hinders the truth by means of his unrighteousness. He doesn’t want to find God.

[62:48] Would you please remember that when you debate with people who say, well, I want to believe in God if I can just have the evidence for it. We need to remind them the Bible says no one seeks after God. The very fact that you’re saying if God would only give me the evidence tells me you don’t want to find God. Because according to God, he’s given such abundant evidence that you can’t miss it. Therefore, you must be suppressing the truth.

[63:15] Kind of like, you’ve heard my illustration before, it’s like the guy playing pool. You know, the game in the swimming pool with the volleyball. He’s sitting on the volleyball and going, where’s the ball? Where’s the ball?

[63:27] Suppressing it all the while pretending he’s looking for it wants to find it. That’s the unbeliever, according to Paul. He’s in contact with the truth. He knows God. He doesn’t have any excuse for not confessing God’s existence, and yet he’s going, what am I supposed to do? I don’t have enough evidence. Where is God? Thirdly, the Christian approach to philosophy aims to interpret everything in terms of the triune God and the lordship of Jesus Christ. Whereas the unbeliever tries to interpret everything without reference to God and according to his own natural categories of thinking. Obviously, there’s quite a difference between being a believer and an unbeliever. It goes far beyond that I believe in the resurrection and he doesn’t. I’ve got a completely different worldview. I’ve got a completely different approach to how I should think and what I should believe and how I should live my life than the unbeliever. Now, he may not know that, but my job as an apologist, you see, is not to go on the outward misleading appearance that we agree on so many things. My job as an apologist is to look at those things that we appear to agree on and say, now, how is it that you say this, given what your worldview is? Because I think what we have here are worldviews in collision. In our next lecture, what I’m going to try to do is to show the certainty of Christianity And since we have two worldviews in conflict, I’d like to show, first of all, how we can be certain as Christians that our worldview is correct and right.

[65:04] And then in my third lecture, I’ll be looking at the futility of unbelief, why the worldview of the unbeliever does, under cross-examination, disintegrate. Let’s take a short break here, and we’ll come back at two o’clock, if I have that right. Thank you.