0:00 Opening Remarks (Edited From The Original, Includes GLB’s Bio…Read It On The Community Page)
1:15 Apologetics & Self-Deception Synopsis
1:48 Self-Deception: A Vital Concept For Presuppositional Apologetics (Romans CH1)
3:34 Dr. Cornelius Van Til’s Focus On The Self-Deception Characteristic Of The Natural Man In His Apologetic Argumentation
5:02 A Transcendental Argument…Misconstrued As Fideism…An Outline Of Van Til’s Transcendental Argument
8:49 The Boldness Of The Transcendental Argument (All Or Nothing)…Shows The Distinctiveness Of Reformed Apologetics
10:18 Self-Deception By The Unbeliever Enters The Picture…Van Til Draws The Distinction Between The Regenerated Consciousness Which In Principle Sees The Truth, And The Unregenerate Consciousness Which By Its Principle, Cannot See The Truth…AntiTheism Presupposes Theism
11:33 Dr. Van Til Answers The Challenges To His Claims About The Unbeliever…Man Made In The Image Of GOD, Puts Him In Contact With The Truth…Self Consciousness Presupposes GOD Consciousness…THERE ARE NO ATHEISTS
14:24 The Unbeliever & Knowledge (Justified True Belief)…The Suppressed Belief In GOD & Suppressed Knowledge Of GOD
15:37 A Brief Rehearsal Of Presupp Reveals The Unbeliever’s Self-Deception…The Cogency Of Presuppositionalism Is Tied-up With The Intelligibility Of This Notion Of Self-Deception…ON THIS EVERYTHING HANGS.
17:28 The Enigmatic Philosophical Nature Of Self-Deception…THE UNBELIEVER IS SIMULTANEOUSLY A BELIEVER!…Van Til Insists The Christian Apologist Must Do Justice To The Twin Facts: #1) That Every Man Knows GOD #2) The Natural Man Knows Not GOD…IF THE APOLOGIST FAILS AT THIS, THE APOLOGETIC IS NECESSARILY COMPROMISED
19:03 Van Til Replies To Arminian Counter Charge About The State Of The Natural Man: Knowing …The Calvinist …Van Til Makes Clear His Distinctions About The Unbeliever
21:20 The Hasty Error Of Some Presupp Students To Conceive This Situation Of The Unbeliever As A Simple Matter Of Lying …The Situation Is More Strange And Complex Than That …The Unbeliever Is A “Liar” …Van Til Elaborates His Distinctions, Culpable Ignorance
24:50 SUMMARY/RECAP
26:05 Self-Deception Is Commonly Known In Other Non-Biblical/Religious Literature…Benjamin Franklin, Demosthenes, Daniel Dyke, Bishop Joseph Butler, Plato, Rousseau, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hagel, Kierkegaard, Sartre
27:49 Western Literature On The Topic Of Self-Deception: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Lear, Dickens’ Great Expectations, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Henry James’ The Ambassadors
28:25 Russian Literature On Self-Deception: Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Father Sergius, and The Death of Ivan Ilych, Tolstoy’s War and Peace,
29:14 More Illustrations From Literature On Self-Deception: O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, Andre Gide’s Pastoral Symphony, Camus’ The Fall, Karl Mannheim, Marx “false consciousness”, Freud’s psychoanalytic study of subconscious maneuvers and defense mechanisms by which men cling to their cherished illusions.
31:27 Self-Deception, Our Common Experience…Dealing With The Philosophical Paradox Of Self-Deception In The Theory Of Knowledge & The Philosophy Of Mind…Bertrand Russell-The Analysis of Mind (1921), Gilbert Ryle-The Concept of Mind (1949). …Raphael Demos in his pioneering article entitled “Lying to Oneself.”
33:09 The Two Expressions Of Deception: Self-Deception (intrapersonal deception) Deceiving One’s Self & Other Deception (interpersonal deception) Deceiving Somebody Else. …Sartre put the matter plainly in his book Being and Nothingness (KNOWING THE TRUTH TO CONCEAL IT)
35:54 THE PROBLEM GETS EVEN FURTHER COMPLICATED!…The Element Of Mendacity (dishonesty, lying). …The Weak Philosophical Models That Try To Deal With Self-Deception
37:18 Herbert Fingarette Summarizes The Dilemma In Understanding Self-Deception
38:47 What Can We Do To Find A Solution To This Self-Deception Paradox And Rescue Presuppositional Apologetics Along The Way? …The Confusion Lies Not In The Notion Of Self-Deception, But The Confusion Lies Is This Person’s Philosophical Account Of It …We Are Committed To Finding An Adequate And Coherent Analysis Of Self-Deception.
40:31 What Will Be Required Of Us If We Are Going To Succeed? The Basic Requirement For An Acceptable Analysis Of Self-deception Is Simply That It Must “Save The Phenomenon,” While At The Same Time Respecting The Law Of Contradiction. Thus Our Account Must Be Descriptively Accurate – True To Paradigm Examples Of Self-deception.
43:49 The Basic Strategies For Resolving The Paradox
45:25 Summary
Based on Dr. Bahnsen’s doctoral dissertation, these lectures explore the important subject of self-deception and the nature of unbelief. How can the unbeliever both know and not know God? This is an important contribution to the field of apologetic study.
