PREFACE: Dr. Greg Bahnsen (1948-1995): BA in philosophy, MDiv from Westminster Seminary (systematic theology & ethics); PhD in philosophy (epistemology); dissertation on self-deception; lectured for Dr. Cornelius Van Til for presuppositional apologetics (<-> “classical”/Thomistic and fideistic apologetics); debate with Gordon Stein, complete list of audio tapes, videos, articles, books available from the Covenant Media Foundation

SECTION ONE: THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST IN THE REALM OF KNOWLEDGE

1. The Robbery Of Neutrality: demand for neutrality for Christians (truth is truth wherever found -> Bible not necessary for sciences); apologetics: need to find neutral ground when debating with unbelievers; but: God’s word demands unreserved allegiance to God and His truth in all our though and scholarly endeavors; all wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ (Col 2:3-8) -> this includes everything!; Jesus is the truth (Jn 14:6); the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not the outcome (Prov 1:7); philosophy that follows the world and not Christ is vain deceit (Col 2:8)
2. The Immorality Of Neutrality: being “neutral” is only possible if you refuse to be set apart by God’s truth -> it is immoral; Paul forbids the Christian from imitating the unbeliever’s vanity of mind (Eph 4:17-18); you have to choose between being set apart by God’s truth or being alienated from God; you either have to refuse to follow God’s word or the vain mindset of the Gentiles; either have the mind of Christ (1Cor 2:16) or the vain mind of the Gentiles (Eph 4:17); either bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2Cor 10:5) or continue as enemies in your mind (Col 1:21); Christian is completely different from the world when it comes to intellect and scholarship: he has new commitments, new presuppositions -> striving for neutrality = effacing the fact that he is a Christian!; such compromise is impossible (Mt 6:24); neutrality is nothing short of immorality (James 4:4); choose this day whom you will serve!
3. The Nature Of Unbelieving Thought: neutralist thinking: characterized by intellectual futility and ignorance; in God’s light we are able to see light (Ps 36:9) -> being neutral is walking in darkness; Paul is not against the “love of wisdom” (philosophy) per se, only that which does not begin with God’s truth, the teaching of Christ, which follows the presuppositions of the world and is not “according to Christ” -> this is vain deception (Col 2:8); intellectual neutrality is incompatible with a Christian profession -> such a believer is operating in terms of unbelief!; everybody has presuppositions, no one is neutral
4. The Mind Of The New Man Rooted In Christ: Christian called to be rooted in Christ (Col 2:7); walk in Christ as you received Him (Col 2:6); neutrality = veiled agnosticism or unbelief; Christ requires that the Christian love him with every faculty including his mind (Mt 22:37) and submit to the epistemic Lordship of Christ (His authority in the area of thought and knowledge); rooted in Christ (Col 2:7) suggests and action which has been accomplished in the past but continues effect in the present; Christ must have preeminence in the world of thought (Col 1:18b); “It is Christ as God who speaks in the Bible. Therefore the Bible does not appeal to human reason as ultimate in order to justify what it says. It comes to the human being with absolute authority. Its claim is that human reason must itself be taken in the sense in which Scripture takes it, namely, as created by God and as therefore properly subject to the authority of God […] For the essence of the idea of Scripture is that it alone is the criterion of truth.” (Dr. Cornelius Van Til)
5. Revelation As The Foundation Of Knowledge: Christian presupposes the truthful word of God as his standard of truth and direction; many philosophers either deny that there is absolute truth or that one can be certain of knowing the truth <-> God can make you know the certainty of the words of truth (Prov 22:20-21); in God’s light we see light (Ps 36:9); God illuminates our darkness (Ps 18:28); “I believe in order to understand” (Augustine); presupposing God’s word calls for renouncing intellectual self-sufficiency (-> “rational” acceptance of Scripture, they are Christians only because they have figured out or verified the teachings of the Scripture); God is a God of knowledge (1Sam 2:3); “humble submission to God’s word must precede man’s every intellectual pursuit”

6. Summary And Application: God’s Self-Attesting Authority: 1) All knowledge is deposited in Christ; man’s knowledge of the truth depends upon God’s prior knowledge, begins with the fear of the Lord, and requires submission to God’s word. 2) Philosophy which does not presuppose God’s word is a vain deception; by suppressing the truth, submitting to human traditions, and reasoning according to the presuppositions of the world instead of Christ, such thinking leads to a darkened mind and futile conclusions. God makes foolish the vaunted wisdom of the world. 3) Endeavoring to take a neutral stance between presupposing God’s word and not presupposing it is an immoral attempt to serve two lords. 4) Neutralist thinking would erase the Christian’s distinctiveness, blur the antithesis between worldly and believing mind-sets, and ignore the gulf between the “old man” and the “new man.” The Christian who strives for neutrality unwittingly endorses assumptions which are hostile to his faith. 5) The Christian is a “new man,” having a renewed mind, new commitments, a new direction and goal, a new Lord, and hence new presuppositions in the world of thought; the believer’s thinking ought to be rooted in Christ (after the same manner in which he was converted): submitting to His epistemic Lordship rather than the thought patterns of apostate pseudo-wisdom. The Christian renounces the arrogance of human autonomy and seeks to love God with all his mind and to reason in such a manner that God receives the full glory. 6) The alternatives are then quite clear: either ground all your thought in Christ’s word and thereby gain the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, or follow the dictates of autonomous thought and be thereby deluded and robbed of a genuine knowledge of the truth. 7) Therefore, God’s word (in Scripture) has absolute authority for us and is the final criterion of truth. conclusion: all knowledge we possess is received from God; Jesus taught with self-attesting authority (no need to be backed up by the authority of others); not presupposing God’s word leads to double-mindedness (James 1:5-8); word of the Lord is self-attestingly true and authoritative, is it our presuppositional starting point

   SECTION TWO: THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR THE APOLOGETIC TASK

7. Three Arguments Against Presuppositionalism: “It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating Him to scrutinize himself.” (John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion I); “With good reason the ancient proverb strongly recommended knowledge of self to man. […] But knowledge of ourselves lies first in considering what we were given at creation and how generously God continues his favor toward us […] to bear in mind that there is nothing in us of our own, but that we hold on sufferance whatever God has bestowed upon us.” (John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion II); Christ must have the prominence even in the world of thought (Col 1:18); criticisms of biblical and reformed principle of presuppositionalism: 1) it appears “dogmatic” and “absolutistic”: yes, because it is and the Christian should not be ashamed of it; it is not “dogmatic and absolutistic” in the derisive sense: it is not arrogant, unreasoning, or unfounded; 2) if knowledge can only be attained by first presupposing the authoritative word of God, unbelievers are derived of all knowledge, they cannot be said to know anything <-> but: it guarantees (rather than deprives) the unbeliever of a knowledge of the truth; 3) presuppositionalism prevents any meaningful discussion or argumentation with the unbeliever, there is no “common ground” <-> but: it is the only ground upon with argument with unbelievers can be carried on
8. Humble Boldness, Not Obscurantist Arrogance: Proverbs: central book for understanding biblical epistemology; Prov 15:32-33 guides between two extremes (defending obscurantist arrogance vs confessing self-aggrandizement): 1) understanding is only possible when the reproof of the gospel challenge is heeded -> presuppositionalism should be boldly presented, without apologies for the rigor of its demands 2) Christian must be fully aware that his wisdom is not inherently his own but has been given by God -> humility is befitting the Christian scholar, he has nothing to boast of in himself; demands humble boldness
9. Inescapable Revelation, Inescapable Knowledge: would unbeliever be deprived of any knowledge whatsoever? no, far from it: the presuppositionalist claims that only his position guarantees that unbelievers can make positive contributions to the edifice of knowledge! unbelievers can come to know certain things - despite rejecting God’s truth - because they do have revealed presuppositions; no unbeliever is inwardly and sincerely devoid of a knowledge of God (it’s not a saving knowledge but an inescapable knowledge) and because they know God (even though they know Him in curse and reprobation) they are able to attain understanding of the world; unbeliever is double-minded: he both knows and doesn’t know God; he can attain knowledge despite himself; in theory his unbelief would preclude understanding of anything but in practice he is restrained from a consistent, self-destructive following of his unbelieving profession; affirming the clarity and inescapability of natural revelation is central (Ps 139:8; Ps 97:6); “Thus there is no man to whom some awareness of the eternal light does not penetrate […] the common light of nature, a far lowlier thing than faith.” (John Calvin); the unbeliever is inconsistent in his adherence to a denial of God’s truth -> some knowledge is afforded to him; “the natural man is not fully self-conscious of his own position… He has within him the knowledge of God by virtue of his creation in the image of God. But this idea of God is suppressed by his false principle, the principle of autonomy. This principle of autonomy is, in turn, suppressed by the restraining power of God’s common grace… And by the striving of the Spirit… their hostility is curbed in some measure… And as such they can cooperate by virtue of the ethical restraint of common grace” (Van Til); all knowledge (even that of the unbeliever) must be found upon the accepted truth of God -> this stresses presuppositionalism even further
10. Common Ground Which Is Not Neutral: response to criticism takes into account 1) God whom we represent 2) sinner to whom we speak 3) context in which we reason with him; -> 1) God is the Creator of everything, man is commanded to do everything to God’s glory -> there can be no common ground between believer and unbeliever, obedience and rebellion (Mt 6:24; Mt 12:30); no “demilitarized” zone exists, God owns everything or nothing; in God’s world neutrality is impossible; God has never left himself without a witness (Acts 14:17), He made himself known to man (Rom 1:19-20) -> there is no neutral ground where the sinner can escape from the revelational pressure; “Consequently, the believer is wrong to seek (and presume to find) a subject matter that will not challenge the unbeliever with the presuppositional demands we have discussed in previous studies. The hope that such a neutral topic or fact could become the starting point for an argument which progressively convinces the unbeliever of the truth of God’s word (by inches) is futile. Christ is the Lord, even in the world of thought. No fact, no area of knowledge or wisdom, fails to drive home His requirements and manifest His sovereign control. The starting point for understanding is not neutrality but reverence for the Lord.”; there is no neutral ground but there is an ever present common ground: God’s ground
11. Where Point Of Contact Is, And Is Not, Found: 2) person we speak to: noetic effects of sin: thoughts corrupted (Gen 6:5); truth suppressed (Rom 1:18-25); mind blinded by Satan (2Cor 4:4); man is corrupt in every aspect of his being; unbeliever has incorrect diagnosis of his own situation; he thinks his thinking process is normal; epistemologically he has become a law unto himself -> autonomous; “A dying patient may require surgery and yet dread it, thereby self-deluding himself into thinking that his condition only calls for a band-aid. A doctor who accepted his patient’s conception of himself and his condition would not only be a quack, he would show absolutely no concern for the patient’s true health and recovery. So also, the Christian scholar who genuinely desires the spiritual reclamation of the unregenerate thinker must not allow the unbeliever to diagnose his own condition and thoughts and then prescribe an insufficient cure. The unregenerate thinker does not merely need a band-aid of additional information; he needs the major internal surgery of regeneration. He needs to forsake his thoughts and be renewed in knowledge after the image of his creator (Col. 3:10).”; denying common ground doesn’t mean there is no point of contact: both believer and unbeliever created by the image of God; “Presuppositionalism holds that there is very definitely a realm of common ground between believers and unbelievers (ground which is metaphysical in nature), but that common ground is not neutral ground. Moreover, that ground is not found in the natural man’s autonomous conception and interpretation of his experience or the facts of the world. The Christian does not have a point of contact there, but rather in the actual condition of man as the image of God.”

12. Overall Summary: Chapters 1-11: CHRIST’S EPISTEMIC LORDSHIP: 1) God’s knowledge is original, comprehensive, and creative 2) All knowledge and wisdom have been deposited in Christ 3) God’s word has supreme, absolute, and unquestionable authority in the realm of knowledge as well as morality 4) God’s word must be the final standard of truth for man in which case it cannot be challenged by some more ultimate criterion 5) teaching of Christ in Scripture has self-attesting authority; MAN’S EXERCISE OF REASON: 1) There is absolute truth, the knowledge of which is accessible to man 2) man must “think God’s thoughts after Him” (submit to his word) 3) Philosophy which suppresses rather than presupposing the truth of God is in both epistemological and moral rebellion against God 4) Neutrality in scholarship, apologetics, or schooling is both impossible and immoral 5) believer is a “new man” in Christ, being renewed in mind; FURTHER ASPECTS: 1) Men come to presuppose the truth of God only by the grace of God 2) All men are “without excuse” for rebellion against the Lord 3) God has created all things for Himself, directs them to His own sovereign ends, and owns everything

    SECTION THREE: HOW TO DEFEND THE FAITH

13. The Foolishness Of Unbelief: God makes foolish the wisdom of the world (1Cor 1:20); “The Christian cannot forever be defensively constructing atomistic answers to the endless variety of unbelieving criticisms; he must take the offensive and show the unbeliever that he has no intelligible place to stand, no consistent epistemology, no justification for meaningful discourse, predication, or argumentation.”; fool is Scripture: not necessarily shallow-minded, illiterate ignoramus; he is fool because he has forsaken the source of true wisdom; rejected God’s law and word, respecting his own law and word instead (autonomous); fool is one who does not make God and His revelation the starting point (presupposition) of his thinking; Christian apologist must aim to demonstrate that unbelief is destructive of all knowledge
14. A Two-Fold Apologetic Procedure: unbeliever has his standards turned around (mocks Christian faith as foolishness - which is God’s true wisdom, esteems wordly wisdom which is utter foolishness); unbeliever is “without an apologetic” (Rom 1:20); rejection of Christian faith cannot be justified; this wisdom is falsely so called (1Tim 6:20), actually it is hatred of knowledge (Prov 1:22,29); apologist should aim to put this pretense of knowledge (which is at base a hatred of knowledge) to shame by demonstrating unreasonableness of anti-Christianity in contrast with certainty of truth of God’s word; fundamental difference between theism and antitheism: question of epistemology; “Therefore the claim must be made that Christianity alone is reasonable for men to hold. And it is utterly reasonable. It is wholly irrational to hold to any other position than that of Christianity. Christianity alone does not crucify reason itself… The best, the only, the absolutely certain proof of the truth of Christianity is that unless its truth be presupposed there is no proof of anything. Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof itself” (Van Til); fool must be answered by showing him 1) his foolishness 2) the necessity of Christianity as the precondition of intelligibility; Prov 26:4-5: two-fold apologetic procedure: apologist should 1) defend his faith by working within his own presuppositions (do not answer the fool according to his folly) 2) show the unbeliever the outcome of his presuppositions (answer the fool according to his folly)
15. Answering The Fool: prescribed course for giving answer to every man who asks a reason for the hope that is in us: 1Pt 3:15; need to start with setting apart Christ as Lord in our hearts (acknowledge lordship of Christ over our thinking -> presuppositionalism); otherwise if we reason by trusting our own intellectual power or the teachings of “experts” more than trusting the veracity of God’s revelation -> we end up agreeing with the unbeliever, and being like him; but: apologist must do it with humility and reverence (1Pt 3:15b); instructive summary of presuppositional approach to apologetics: 2Tim 2:23-25: 1) apologist must not be arrogant, must be gentle, patient, courteous, and unquarrelsome, which demonstrates that his wisdom is from above (James 3:13-17); 2) apologist must not consent to answer in terms of foolish unbelief; he must reject foolish questions (I.e. questions given from the fool’s point of view); he should educate the questioner (answer him but not according to his foolish presuppositions); 3) unbeliever “opposes himself”; he is intellectually schizophrenic; 4) unbeliever needs conversion - not just additional information - to get a saving knowledge (not just a condemning one) of God; 5) conversion is granted by God; he determines the destiny of all men (Eph 1:1-11); our duty is to be faithful to the Lord’s instructions; he will bless obedience to His will, success cannot come by circumventing it
16. Worldviews In Collision: unbeliever opposes Christan faith with a whole system of thought; apologist cannot just string together evidences which offer a slight probability of the Bible’s veracity, he needs to argue at the presuppositional level; example: Paul’s defence in front of Agrippa (Acts 26); debate is fundamentally a dispute between two complete worldviews, it will work down to the level of one’s ultimate authority; “The presuppositionalist realizes that every argument chain must end in a self-authenticating starting point; every worldview has its unquestioned and unquestionable assumptions, its primitive commitments.”; all debate will develop into a question of ultimate authority; at this point only a presuppositional argument can resolve the tension because it asks which position provides the preconditions for observation, reason, and meaningful discourse; if the unbeliever were correct in his presuppositions nothing could be understood or known; all wisdom and knowledge must take Jesus Christ as its reference point (Col 2:3); the believer’s thinking - just as the unbeliever’s - is grounded in a self-validating starting point; Christ refused to put God to the test (Mt 4:7) -> implicit obedience to God’s law (Deut 6:16)
17. The Ultimate Starting Point: God’s Word: arguing about facts is never sufficient because the interpretation of facts depend on underlying philosophy of fact (-> presupposition); all argument chains must come to an end, ultimately at the level of presuppositions; unquestionable, self-evidencing presuppositions cannot be other than God and His revealed word (rather than independently supported “brute facts”), for no reasoning is possible apart from it (argue for impossibility of the contrary); this is the perspective of Scripture: Jesus taught with self-sufficient authority (Mt 7:29), his words would judge those who reject them (Jn 12:48-50); no man has the right to question God (Rom 9:20); God’s word is more sure than any eye-witness experience of facts (2Pt 1:16-19); crux of Christian apologetics: not mere experienced facts (necessary though they may be) but God’s revelation in its self-attesting truthfulness; final standards to test all religious claims: apostolic teaching (1Jn 4:2-3); “Indeed, it is the case, as many will be quick to point out, that this presuppositional method of apologetics assumes the truth of Scripture in order to argue for the truth of Scripture. Such is unavoidabld when ultimate truths are being debated. However, such is not damaging, for it is not a flat circle in which one reasons (i.e., ‘the Bible is true because the Bible is true’). Rather, the Christian apologist simply recognizes that the ultimate truth - that which is more pervasive, fundamental, and necessary - is such that it cannot be argued independently of the preconditions inherent in it. One must presuppose the truth of God’s revelation in order to reason at all - even when reasoning about God’s revelation. The fact that the apologist presupposes the word of God in order to carry on a discussion or debate about the veracity of that word does not nullify his argument, but rather illustrates it.”

18. Summary On Apologetic Method: Chapters 13-17: The Nature of the Apologetic Situation: 1) controversy between the believer and unbeliever: antithesis between two complete systems of thought 2) even factual evidence will be interpreted in light of governing presuppositions 3) all chains of argumentation trace back to self-evidencing starting points -> circular reasoning is be unavoidable (but it still valid and intelligible) 4) appeals to logic, fac are not adequate; underlying presuppositions need to be attacked 5) unbeliever’s way of thinking: a) image of God -> inescapably religious b) unbeliever exchanges the truth for a lie. c) convinced that he could not be fundamentally wrong d) his thinking results in ignorance e) intellectually schizophrenic f) without excuse (apologetic) for his rebellion against God g) unbelief stems from refusal to submit to the authoritative word of God, not lack of facts; The Requirements of the Apologist: he must have: 1) proper attitude: not arrogant or quarrelsome, gentle and peaceable 2) proper starting point (God’s word as his self-evidencing presupposition) 3) proper method: aim to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ 4) proper goal: securing the unbeliever’s unconditional surrender without compromising his own fidelity: a) expose pseudo-wisdom of the world as destructive foolishness b) refuse to suspend intellectual commitment to its Christ; The Procedure for Defending the Faith: the apologist should: 1) reject foolish presuppositions, try to educate opponent 2) present facts within the context of the Biblical philosophy of fact: a) God is the sovereign determiner of possibility and impossibility b) proper reception and understanding of the facts requires submission to the Lordship of Christ c) facts will be significant to the unbeliever only if he has a presuppositional change of mind from darkness to light d) Scripture has authority to declare what has happened in history and to interpret it correctly 3.) attack unbeliever’s presuppositions: a) place himself on the unbeliever’s position and answer him according to his folly b) demonstrate ignorance of unbelief by arguing from the impossibility of anything contrary to Christianity 4) expose unadmitted presuppositions and ineradicable knowledge of God 5) declare the self-evidencing and authoritative truth of God as the precondition of intelligibility and man’s only way of salvation a) answer him according to God’s word (not according to his folly) b) show that Christian position alone is reasonable to hold c) explain that Scripture provides the only escape from the effects of hostility

    SECTION FOUR: THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR APOLOGETIC SUCCESS

19. God Must Sovereignly Grant Understanding: apologist must be prepared to challenge of the unbeliever’s thinking; educated “experts” criticized Jesus’ educational credentials (Jn 7:14-15) -> Jesus countered by challenging the competence of his opponents; Christian dwelling in God’s word knows the truth (Jn 8:31-32); all things are granted through a knowledge of God (2Pt 1:3); apologist must refrain from appealing to the autonomous principles of secular thought because autonomy and understanding is mutually exclusive; autonomy is the source of the unbeliever’s lack of understanding; because of sin no one has understanding (Rom 3:10-12); but is a child of wrath in his mind (Eph 2:3); rebel thinker walks according to his own thoughts & locked into foolishness (Isa 65:2; Mk 7:21-22), teaches demonic lies (1Tim 4:1-2) -> these are harsh and unpopular words to modern ears; apologists are unwilling to indict the root foolishness of secular thought <-> is impossible to evade Bible’s stringent indictment of unbelieving thought; God can only be known by a voluntary revelation by the Son and the Spirit of God (Mt 11:27); success of apologetics depends on the work of the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:3); one can only know God when the Son grants him understanding (1Jn 5:20); apologist is called to give faithful witness of the truth rather than try to improve on the Lord’s wisdom by autonomous arguments; successful apologetic is a function of the grace of God, not human cleverness and wisdom
20. One Must Believe In Order To Understand: man cannot come to an understanding of God (and thereby of God’s world) by means of his independently exercised reason; motto of Wisdom literature: “The beginning (= first and controlling principle) of knowledge is the fear (= reverent submission) of the Lord” (Prov 1:7)”; faith is prerequisite of coming to the Lord in saving knowledge (Heb 11:6); faith is the precondition of understanding; “Understanding is the reward of faith; therefore, do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand” (Augustine); apologist must aim to bring ignorant to repentance (Acts 17:30); knowledge can only be gained when the unbeliever repents -> success of apologetic is in the hands of God
21. Strategy Guided By The Nature Of Belief: goal of apologetic defense: bring the unbeliever to faith; paradigm of faith: Abraham; his faith did not rely on his own autonomous thinking (Prov 28:26) like human reasoning or scientific investigation but on presuppositional conviction about the veracity of God’s word; Abraham believed God’s word on its own merits; faith cannot be planted and grow in the soil of human wisdom; since faith is our ultimate goal, our defense must be rooted in the presupposed word of God rather than guided by clever arguments which rests on assumed intellectual autonomy
22. Not Being Beguiled As Was Eve: “Without this word or revelation from God there can be no theoretical basis for logic, science, or history; one’s thought has no meaningful content, dependable use, or objective referent and certainty apart from thinking God’ thoughts after Him. […] The moment one abandons his sure footing in the presupposed word of God his apologetic becomes unfaithful and precarious. A vivid confrontation of that fact can be taken from the account of man’s fall into sin according to Genesis 3. Even in the garden man was responsible to submit without ques- tion to God’s revelation given by special word to him. Satan’s strategy then (as now) was to work toward undermining man’s presuppositional submission to this authoritative word from God. He began by calling the word into question (v. 1) and then contradicting it openly (v. 4). The epistemological situation was thrown into upheaval when Eve began thinking that she could have a meaningful and proper understanding of reality apart from God’s revelation. In that case she was free to examine what God had to say and autonomously determine its truth over against the conflicting hypothesis of Satan. She suspended thinking God’s thoughts after Him in order to become the prime authority in the world of thought. Specifically, she abandoned loyalty to her Creator so as to make herself His equal (v. 5), determining good and evil for herself. She took her stand as a “neutral” judge over God’s hypothesis, thereby exalting her “autonomous” reason over God’s epistemologically necessary word. By thus usurping the epistemic prerogatives of the Lord, she plunged the human race into the lawlessness we see ever about us in thought and behavior.”; don’t fall into the same trap Eve did (2Cor 11:3); expect to be ridiculed as intellectual layman when you do not reason in a way pleasing to your hearer (cf. Paul, 2Cor 11:6)
23. Not Lying To Defend The Truth: many apologists admit teachings of Scripture as theologians but temporarily suppress these truths as apologists; but: apologist cannot try to persuade unbeliever by using the unbeliever’s style of thought, it only asserts his own autonomous authority over Christ’s claims; using a double standard is immoral; you can’t convert an unbeliever by means that contradict Scripture; apologists are prohibited from using non-presuppositional methods in defending the faith under the excuse that thereby truth might abound (Rom 3:7-8); you cannot operate with a lie (= Satanic lie that knowledge can be determined apart from God) to defend the truth; the apologist shouldn’t behave as an unbeliever to make him a believer; but must be transformed by a renewed mind and fashion his thinking according to the world (Rom 12:2); he must not lie or abandon God’s presupposed truth in order to bring acceptance of that truth by evil speakers

24. Effectively Encountering The Varieties Of Opposition: Overall Summary (Chapters 1-23) And Application: opposition to biblical Christianity has many forms: 1) direct attacks on Christian tenets (eg. rejecting God, rejecting the possibility of revelation, reject the Bible as being God’s revelation based on a) logic (finding contradictions in the Bible), or b) factual matters (rejecting textual accuracy, historical veracity, or possibility of miracles), or c) ethical concerns (criticking Gods actions or commandment), or personal considerations (the Biblis not to their liking, it doesn’t meet their need, or being indifferent and relativistic); 2) systems competing with evangelical Christianity: some accept a) the wrong god (deism, pantheism, various world religions), b) the wrong revelation (internal intuition, personal feeling, social opinion, human tradition, sacred writings), c) the wrong interpretation or improperly understand the Bible (modern unorthodoxy, teaching an incorrect theology and soteriology, cults); believer’s clear and unavoidable responsibility to be prepared to give an answer to any man (1Pt 3:15); despite variety there are common themes and general guidelines; fundamental principle: lordship of Christ in the realm of knowledge; conditions of fruitful argument with unbeliever: God’s inescapable revelation; apologist should defend the faith by standing firmly on the word of God, showing that unbelief results in intellectual foolishness, show by internal critique of the unbeliever’s thought that he actually opposes himself; condition of successful apologetics: only through God granting understanding of the truth; “Every apologetical situation is characterized by these facts: God’s revelation is at base necessary for knowledge of any kind, all unbelievers are without excuse since they possess and suppress the knowledge of God, and the Christian is characterized by unconditional surrender to Christ in all things.”

    SECTION FIVE: ANSWERS TO APOLOGETIC CHALLENGES

25. Ready To Reason: objection: “God’s word does not need defense” (~ lion in cage -> just need to let it loose) -> mistaken: confuses what God needs vs requires from us (eg God tells us to work/evangelize even though he doesn’t need either); apologetics is not a divine necessity but a moral necessity, a God-ordained responsibility of all believers (Jud 3; Tit 1:9); 1Pt 3:15 doesn’t say that 1) we need to take the initiative 2) we are responsible to persuade others (“we can close the mouth of the critic but only God can open the heart”) 3) defending the faith has a different ultimate authority than expounding the faith (theology and apologetics have the same epistemological authority: Christ); reason: should not be taken as a standard (ultimate and independent authority) but as a tool (gift of God to man); anti-intellectualism: throws baby out with the bath
26. The Heart Of The Matter: difference between Christian and non-Christian: faith; saving faith involves knowledge (Job 19:25, 1Jn 5:13, Jn 8:32): justification/good reason to support what you believe; comparing worldviews by looking at the observable evidences: simplistic & naive; your most fundamental beliefs (presuppositions) determine what you accept as evidence or how evidence to be interpreted; worldview: network of related presuppositions; everybody has one even if they don’t think about it; justification of belief governed by underlying worldview; Christian’s contention: all non-Christian worldviews have internal contradictions and beliefs that make logic, science, ethics unintelligible; proof that Christianity is true: if it were not, we would not be able to prove anything (impossibility of the contrary); unbelievers: guilty of self-deception (Rom 1:18); unbeliever’s knowledge: evidence of God’s revelation; task of apologetics: strip unbeliever of his mask, challenge the heart of his philosophical outlook
27. Answering Objections: many attacks are directed against Christianity; wrong approaches: 1) subjectivism: appeal to inner feeling not a persuasive argument; confidence: psychological property, feeling assurance that something is true <-> certainty: property of proposition, not the person; truth of Christianity: independent of what anybody thinks or feels about it (either way); 2) relativism: no absolute truth; either hypercritical or self-contradictory; 3) eclecticism: incorporating Christianity into religious options (one of the many paths to the mountain top); right approach: apologetic (1Pt 3:15): defense of an accused person in a court; arguing is necessary (not wrong in itself) but being argumentative is prohibited; “proof” (Acts 9:22): “drawing things together”; argument: truth of proposition asserted on the basis of the truth of other propositions, conclusion inferred from premises (not the same as conditional statement); argument is not an explanation (“because” often asserts casual connection -> not an argument); apologetics: both defensive (responds to criticism) and offensive (presents its own challenges); unbelievers find it hard to believe that they are in no position (epistemologically or morally) to question God; putting God to test is prohibited (Deut 6:16 - Jesus used this verse to rebuke Satan); unbeliever has no intellectual ground to stand in opposing God’s revelation (God is “in the dock”)
28. Tools Of Apologetics: God wants us to be rational: to exercise and improve our reasoning ability; be alert to point out elementary errors in unbeliever’s reasoning: 1) prejudicial conjecture (personal conjecture about what “seems likely” without concrete evidence -> many negative preconceptions are arbitrary or embarrassing) 2) unargued philosophical bias (expose philosophical precommitments, eg “we know miracles are impossible”) 3) key intellectual sins (being arbitrary or inconsistent -> violate fundamental requirements for sounds reasoning) 4) conflicting presuppositions (especially metaphysical, epistemological and ethical ones, identify what is being taken for granted) 5) common logical fallacies (truth of premise is irrelevant to the truth of the conclusion, truth of conclusion does not reliably follow from the premises, unfairness of mind, distortion of facts) 6) behavior which betrays professed belief (asserting one thing, but then live contrary to it)
29. Apologetics In Practice: summary: 1. Engaging in apologetics is a moral necessity for every believer; we must be “always ready” to offer an answer for the hope within us (1 Peter 3:15) 2. To avoid misconceptions, we note that apologetics is not: (a) pugnacious, (b) a matter of persuasion, or (c) based on a different ultimate authority than theology. 3. For the Christian, “reason” should be used as a tool, not as the ultimate authority, in our thinking. 4. Our claim before the world is that believers “know” the Bible to be true- we have adequate justification for believing its claims. 5. The conflict between believers and unbelievers is ultimately over their differing worldviews - networks of presuppositions in terms of which all experience is interpreted and reasoning is guided. 6. Consequently we need to argue from “the impossibility of the contrary,” showing that only Christianity provides the preconditions of intelligibility for man’s experience and reasoning. If Christianity were not true, the unbeliever could not prove or understand anything. 7. Unbelievers are self-deceived: they know the truth about God, but suppress it (rationalizing the clear evidence within them and all around them). 8. The true defendant, intellectually and morally, is the unbeliever - not God. 9. There are a large variety of different kinds of attacks upon Christianity, and they cannot be dealt with adequately by defenses which rest upon: (a) subjectivism, (b) relativism, or (c) eclecticism. 10. Apologists must use argumentation. Sanctified argumentation need not be contentious; we find that sanctified arguing with unbelievers is warranted by Biblical example. 11. An argument asserts the truth of a proposition on the basis of others. 12. Rationality in argumentation is broader than simply using the rules of syllogistic deduction. 13. God wishes for us to master the tools of rationality in defending the faith. It is our task to refute the challenges of unbelievers and to offer an internal critique of the position from which those challenges arise. 14. The two key intellectual sins which are committed by people are (a) inconsistency and (b) arbitrariness. 15. In dealing with the unbeliever, the Christian should be alert to point out the critic’s: (a) prejudicial conjectures, (b) unargued philosophical bias, (c) presuppositions which do not comport with each other, (d) logical fallacies, and behavior which betrays his professed beliefs. Example: “Why I Am Not a Christian” by Bertrand Russell: he could not say with certainty what was true about reality & knowledge <-> yet he was firmly convinced that Christianity was false; he asserts that our ideals and values are not objective <-> yet he asserts our autonomous values are something worthwhile; he claims Christianity is the enemy of moral progress -> this is arbitrary (based on what standards?); he says scientific laws are merely descriptions of what happened in the past <-> yet he uses it to protect what will happen in the future; he takes it for granted that autonomous reason enables man to know things (eg believes that natural world operates on a uniform fashion); he criticizes Christians for their ignorance and lack of scholarship <-> yet he claims the existence of Jesus is doubtful (ignores the NT documents as authentic witnesses, even secular references to Christ); he shifts from evaluating Christian beliefs to criticizing Christian believers (-> ad hominem fallacy); he presumes to know the motivation of a person becoming a Christian based on the very small sample of his personal experience (-> generalization); he criticized the emotional factor of Christians’ commitment to God <-> yet he evidences similar emotional factor in his own personal anti-Christian commitment (appeal to courage, pride, freedom and self-worth to refrain from being Christian); he accuses Christian with “wickedness” (cruelty, wars, inquisition) <-> yet he ignores to reflect on violence committed by non-Christians (Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, Marquis de Sade)
30. The Problem Of Evil: example: Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: 5-year-old child hated and tortured by her parents; problem of evil points to a logical incoherence within Christianity: if God knows there is evil but cannot prevent it -> he is not omnipotent, if he can but doesn’t want -> he is not omnibenevolent; premises: 1. God is completely good. 2. God is completely powerful. 3. Evil exists (happens); without premise 3 there is no contradiction; how does unbeliever define “good”? 1) whatever evokes public approval <-> ordinarily, people think of goodness as evoking approval not the other way around 2) whatever evokes approval of the individual <-> it implies that no two individuals can make identical ethical judgements (“helping orphans is good” = “helping orphans evokes the approval of person X”); it also implies that a person’s own ethical judgements could never be mistaken (unless he misunderstands his own feelings); 3) instrumental/consequential approach: whatever tends to achieve a certain end (eg greatest happiness of the greatest number of people) <-> impossible to rate and calculate; also, it only works if we assume that the goal (generalized happiness) itself is good -> instrumental theories of goodness must address the issue of intrinsic goodness, so they can determine what their goals ought to be; problem of evil is a problem for the unbeliever: in order to argue from evil against Christianity, he must first be able to show that his judgments about evil are meaningful -> which is precisely what his worldview cannot do; on unbeliever’s worldview there is no good reason for saying that anything is evil in nature, but only by personal choice or feeling; his moral indignation requires the unchanging, good character of God to make sense philosophically; unbeliever’s response: evil is based on human reasoning/choices (ie relative to the individual or culture) -> logical incoherence (child abuse is wrong in itself <-> child abuse is wrong only if individual/culture chooses a value which is inconsistent with it); unbeliever must secretly rely on the Christian worldview to make sense of his argument; moral outrage is consistent with the Christian’s worldview (even if he cannot explain why God allows wickedness); paradox can be resolved by adding premise 4: God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil which exists -> no logical contradiction; problem of evil: not logical but psychological; hard to trust God and his goodness when we don’t know the reason of why things happen (“the secret things being to the Lord our God” - Deut 29:29); Bible calls us to trust that God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil but doesn’t tell us what that sufficient reason is; it finally becomes question of ultimate authority; unbeliever refuses to trust God unless God subordinates Himself to the intellectual authority and moral evaluation of the unbeliever; Adam and Eve did the same: refused to trust God simply on His say-so -> brought in evil and pain to humanity; “When unbelievers refuse to accept the goodness of God on the basis of His own self-revelation, they simply perpetuate the source of all of our human woes. Rather than solving the problem of evil, they are part of the problem. Therefore, it should not be thought that “the problem of evil” is anything like an intellectual basis for a lack of faith in God. It is rather simply the personal expression of such a lack of faith. What we find is that unbelievers who challenge the Christian faith end up reasoning in circles. Because they lack faith in God, they begin by arguing that evil is incompatible with the goodness and power of God. When they are presented with a logically adequate and Biblically supported solution to the problem of evil (viz., God has a morally sufficient but undisclosed reason for the evil that exists), they refuse to accept it, again because of their lack of faith in God. They would rather be left unable to give an account of any moral judgment whatsoever (about things being good or evil) than to submit to the ultimate and unchallengeable moral authority of God. That is too high a price to pay, both philosophically and personally.”
31. The Problem Of Knowing The “Super-Natural”: “super-natural”: whatever surpasses the limits of nature; falls within “metaphysics”: study of being, (what is it to exist?, what are the similarities and distinctions between existing things? what are the ultimate causes and explanations for existence?); -> hostile mindset developed against metaphysics; Christian answers: to exist = to be divine or created; similarity & distinction: results from God’s creative with; both the existence and nature of things find their explanation in Him - whether casual (Eph 1:11) or teleological (Eph 1:11); metaphysics is comprehensive, tries to make sense of the world as a whole, distinguishing between the true nature of the world vs mere appearances; Christian faith comprises a metaphysical system, they give ultimate principles of objective reality, distinguishes between appearance from reality; empirical experience: merely gives us an appearance of things, cannot in itself correct illusions, cannot determine the limits of the possible -> metaphysics studies suprasensible (non-sensuous) reality -> support for metaphysical claims not limited to natural observation and scientific experimentation -> antipathy (if nothing transcending the physical - “metaphysical” - can be known then God can be known); however: metaphysical commitments cannot be avoided (denial of knowing anything metaphysical is itself a metaphysical claim); critics: all information must be derived empirically -> metaphysical statements are not significant (Kant) even meaningless (Logical Positivists); formally: 1. there cannot be a non-empirical source of knowledge or information about reality 2. it is illegitimate to draw inferences from what is experienced by the senses to what must lie outside of experience -> in short: we can only know what we can experience of our senses; problems with premise 2: this is exactly what scientists are doing (reasoning from the seen to the unseen) -> why should it be prohibited for theologians?; also: it is not relevant against biblical metaphysics (it’s not about man reasoning from the seen world to the unseen world; it’s about God coming to man not man groping toward God; Christian theology is not a result of self-sufficient exploration of man’s empirical evidence but the self-revelation of the transcendent God); it begs the main question (already presupposes that knowledge must be derived from empirical evidence); problems with premise 1: self-refuting (if it is true, we would never know that it were true because the question itself is not a result of empirical evidence); this is a presupposition (something that controls inquiry rather than being the result of inquiry); it also undermines science (uniformity of nature cannot be known to be true, logical rules are not empirical either); the “this-wordly” outlook of the unbeliever is just as much a metaphysical opinion as the “other-wordly” viewpoint of the Christian -> unbeliever appeals to a metaphysical position to prove that there can be no metaphysical position known to be true!; two full-fledged presuppositional philosophies stand over against each other
32. The Problem Of Faith: conception of faith: blind personal commitment, requiring to sacrifice reason, belief in something “despite evidence against it” (contrary to reason), or “the absence of evidence for it” (without reasons); Christianity charged with irrationality because: 1) the the teachings of the Bible are irrational (logical imperfection) 2) the historical claims are irrational (empirical imperfection) 3) Christianity is absurd -> all criticism flows from mistaken nature of Christian faith; Bible is not indifferent to logical or factual mistakes, Christianity is not an arbitrary leap of emotion, blind commitment, placing the intellect on hold, aiming to affirm the absurd, but it’s well-grounded; “I won’t believe anything until it’s proven” -> Rene Descartes: man should strive to follow a reliable and proper method for arriving at their beliefs (-> what about their beliefs about the proper method? are these beliefs also arrived by means of that proper method? if yes -> no independent (non-question-begging) authority, if no -> it’s not a proper foundation); even he recognizedthat nobody can doubt everything (eg memory of past experiences, meaning of words, principles of reason -> otherwise there would be no thinking at all); “I think therefore I am” -> this is begging the question (when he says “I think” he already assumes there is an “I”) -> correct premise: “Thinking is occurring” -> from which it does not logically follow that “I exist”; C. Gore: religious hypothesis should be examined without presuppositions -> this is impossible, refutes himself (not just Christians), requires something that he himself doesn’t live up to; Anthony Flew: nothing should be believed on the basis of God’s personal authority -> he has already determined in advance that God cannot be the ultimate authority, it must be first authorized by human reasoning; “The natural man then assumes that he has the final criterion of truth within himself. Every form of authority that comes to him must justify itself by standards inherent in man and operative apart from the authority that speaks.” (Van Til); criticizing the irrationality of Christian faith is nothing more than an expression of a different religious faith which accepts the ultimate authority of the human mind and reasoning (-> actually this is irrational because it cannot account for science and philosophy)
33. The Problem Of Religious Language: 20th century: meaningfulness of religious language attacked in two ways: 1) Verificationism: verification principle: sentence is meaningful only if it can be empirically confirmed -> faith in natural science, self-refuting: scientific results become meaningless too - eg. “all whales are mammals”; 2) Falsificationism: theories are scientific of they are falsifiable by empirical methods; Antony Flew’s example: two man on island, one is convinced there is a gardener, despite all the evidence to the contrary -> but: confuses proposition (logically resisting falsification) and person (psychologically resisting falsification); even scientists can have strong convictions and won’t change their minds -> does that imply that their conviction is meaningless?; logical status of a belief is independent of the person’s demeanor (degree of his readiness to abandon the belief); Flew assumes people accept or reject beliefs one at a time <-> in reality, beliefs are always connected (eg “I see a ladybug on the rose” assumes several things simultaneously: English words, personal identity, reality of external word, laws of logic etc) -> when conflict arises between network of beliefs and empirical evidence, adjustment is needed but you can’t know which belief a person will change to eliminate conflict (joke: psychiatrist treating man who believed he was dead, “do you believe dead men bleed?” - “no”; pricks him with needle, man’s reaction: “I was wrong: dead men do bleed after all” :) doctor tried to change one of his belief (he is dead) but ends up changing another (dead men don’t bleed); Flew has presuppositions too just like Christians; summary: both attempt was a failure -> ended up self-refuting
34. The Problem Of Miracles: arrogant assumption: critical mindset is exclusive to the “modern world”; people in the ancient world believed in miracles because they were 1) scientifically stupid 2) gullible and naive 3) fascinated -> there are such people today too!; beware of sloppy and self-serving generalizations/comparisons between ages and cultures; people in NT doubted too (eg Thomas, disciples in Emmaus, Mary Magdalene etc); there was a general antagonism to the credibility of the resurrection in the ancient world too; intellectually they were a mixed bag too (some superstitious, ignorant, silly etc); like today, defenders of the faith faced significant opposition -> when they came to believe in “miraculous” events of the Bible it was not because of ignorance or folly; denial of the possibility of miracles is not an evidence for rejecting the Christian worldview but a specific manifestation of that rejection; if the God of the Bible exists, there is no reason to rule out the possibility of miracles; but if miracles in Bible did not occur because they could not occur and “therefore” Christianity is false -> this is begging the question; this is the unbeliever’s personal prejudice masquerading as “modern rationality”; “miracle” does not appear in Scripture, rather: sign, wonder, act/work of God; common features: 1) extraordinary 2) exceeds human ability 3) has a special purpose; “The miracle is an extraordinary and awe inspiring event which in its character (or sometimes in its timing) cannot be explicated by known natural principles or controlled by mere human beings. That is its super-natural quality.”; misconceptions: 1) there are impersonal “laws is nature” which make the world operate mechanically, apart from the choices of God’s will which is occasionally “violated” by him -> no biblical support; rather: God personally created and personally directs all the affairs of the world (sustaining animal life, changing seasons, hairs on our head) -> he causes everything to happen which happens; 2) God works though ordinary and special means (providing bread through harvest vs bringing them directly into existence) -> generalization is unclear: sometimes God works through ordinary means (eg departing the Red Sea with strong wind); 3) miracles can only be performed by God (<-> contrary to Bible)

Appendix: The Encounter Of Jerusalem With Athens: “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” (Tertullian); relationship between faith (Jerusalem - J) and philosophy (Athens - A): some 1) renounce of extrabiblical learning (J vs A) 2) reject Biblical teaching when in conflict with secular thought (A vs J) 3) try to appease both sides, Bible and reason have their own separate domains (J segregated from A) 4) mingling the two, both contain elements of truth (J integrated with A) 5) extrabiblical reasoning can properly proceed only on the foundation of Biblical truth (J capital of A); Acts 17: pattern with respect to message and method; theology and apologetics are inseparable; “A non-evangelical attitude toward the Scripture allows some scholars a supposed liberty to criticize the authenticity or accuracy of its contents, despite the Bible’s own claim to flawless perfection as to the truth.”; Paul’s contemporaries: Seneca (Stoic), Philo; Paul was on a “missionary furlough”; for Paul sculptures of Greek deities represented not art but despicable and crude religion; Aeropagus: reference to city council -> some form of interrogation; one of many indicators of Luke’s accuracy as a historian: “According to Acts, therefore, just as Paul is brought before the strategoi at Philippi, the politarchai at Thessalonica, the anthupatos at Corinth, so at Athens he faces the Areopagus. The local name for the supreme authority is in each case different and accurate.” (Lake & Cadbury); conceptual paradigm clash: Paul’s outlook didn’t make sense to philosophers; respectful and gentle attitude; Paul’s argumentation: 1) clash of total attitude and basic proposition 2) ignoring non-Christian presuppositions 3) starting point of all reasoning: revelational authority 4) unbeliever’s suppression of the truth results in culpable ignorance 5) demonstrate foolishness of unbeliever’s worldview and call to repentance; “very religious”: can also mean “somewhat superstitious” -> ambiguous, not flattering; Paul didn’t try to build a common foundation of natural theology but underscored their ignorance; God was unknown only because the Athenians didn’t want to know him; “proclaim” (v23): solemn declaration made with authority; heathen philosophers at best “grope in darkness” after God -> even pagans, contrary to their spiritual disposition, possess a knowledge of God; quotes from poets Epimedes and Aratus: not to agree with them but to show that even they possess some knowledge of God, albeit suppressed (false religion contains elements of the truth and gets its strength from those elements); Paul didn’t use pantheistic premises to support a theistic conclusion (-> logical fallacy of equivocation); even in their abuse of the truth pagans cannot avoid the truth of God, they must first have it in order that they might then distort it; Paul uses a typically Jewish polemic regarding God, idolatry and judgement; Paul remained on solid Christian ground; he didn’t intend to appeal to his audience but offended both Stoics and Epicureans; Paul was not seeking areas of agreement or common notions with his hearers but called them to repentance; resurrection was evidence in Paul’s argumentation, not a conclusion (Paul was aware that acceptance of the facts are governed by one’s most ultimate assumptions); apparently no church was immediately developed in Athens

Key Scripture References:

• Deut 6:16 man are in no position (epistemologically or morally) to question God and his revealed word
• 1Sam 2:3 Jahweh is a God of knowledge
• Ps 36:9 in God’s light we are able to see light
• Prov 1:7 fear of God: beginning of wisdom (not consequence)
• Prov 1:29 fool hates knowledge
• Prov 22:20-21 God can make you know the certainty of the words of truth
• Prov 26:4-5 don’t answer the fool according to his foolishness (-> work within your own presuppositions) answer the fool according to his foolishness (-> internal critique to point out unintelligible assumptions)
• Mt 4:7 Jesus refused to put God to the test
• Mt 22:37 love the Lord with all your faculties (including your mind)
• Jn 14:6 Jesus is truth
• Jn 17:17 God’s word is truth
• Acts 17 Paul’s speech in Athens
• Rom 1:18 knowledge of God suppressed in unrighteousness
• Rom 1:20 unbeliever is without an apologetic
• Rom 1:21-22 unbelievers became fools and vain in their reasoning
• Rom 9:20 no man has the prerogative to call God into question
• Rom 11:36 He is the explanation for existence (both casual and teleological)
• 1Cor 1:20 God made wordly wisdom foolish
• 1Cor 1:17-25; 3:18-20 wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s eyes
• 2Cor 10:5 cast down every reasoning against the knowledge of God, bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ
• 2Cor 11:3 serpent used beguiling philosophy to ensnare Eve
• Eph 1:11 God works all things according to the counsel of his will -> he causes everything to happen which happens
• Eph 4:17-24 unbelievers’ mind darkened because of hardened hearts but Christian’s mind has been renewed
• Col 1:18 Christ must have pre-eminence in all things (including world of thought)
• Col 2:3 all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited in Christ
• Col 2:8 avoid philosophy that is not after Christ
• 1Tim 6:20 worldly wisdom is knowledge falsely so called
• 2Tim 2:25 correct those who are opposing themselves, call to repent into the knowledge of the truth
• 1Pt 3:15 always be ready to give an answer