The Scriptures as the Basis of Our Apologetic

 Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, with 176 verses. Of those verses, only three don't contain a word referring to the scriptures, such as law, commandments, or testimonies. The Psalm is 176 references to the benefits of God's Word in the life of the believer. I will focus on the section labeled "Waw," verses 41-48. 

"Let Your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, Your salvation according to Your promise; then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your Word. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in Your rules. I will keep Your law continually, forever and ever, and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts. I will also speak of Your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame, for I find my delight in Your commandments, which I love. I will lift up my hands toward Your commandments, which I love, and I will mediate on Your statutes" (Psalm 119:41-48).  

The Psalmist here uses the same encouragement that Jesus gave to His disciples: "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in the synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for My sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Matthew 10:16-20). 

In both passages, it is the source of our answers that should give us confidence, because it is the very Word of God, inspired  by the Holy Spirit. The rest of Psalm 119 relays the means to this end, the constant study of, and obedience to, the Word of God. 

What is often forgotten in our apologetical confrontations is that there is no promise in Scripture that God will give success to our clever response. Rather, He promises His power to attend His word: "So shall My word be, that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). 

Christian Apologetics Against Unbelief in Psalm 10

"The wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek Him; all his thoughts are, 'There is no God.' His ways prosper at all times; Your judgments are on high, out of his sight; as for all his foes, he puffs at them. He says in his heart, 'I shall not be moved; throughout all generations, I shall not meet adversity'... He says in his heart, 'God has forgotten; He has hidden His face, and He will never see it'... Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, 'You will not call me to account'?" (Psalm 10:3-6, 11, 13). 

This is poetry, from an unknown poet, written hundreds of years earlier, but should call to mind a later prose text: "The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who, by their unrighteousness, suppress [their awareness of] the truth... And, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they knew God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them" (Romans 1:18, 28-32). Also Romans 3:18, "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 

What the two writers have in common is something that we often forget about the unbeliever: That he knows that the biblical god exists and holds us accountable for our wicked acts. The difference is that the believer repents of those actions, and flees to Christ for redemption and forgiveness. the unbeliever just shuts the awareness out of his mind, believing, though irrationally, that, if he merely suppresses his knowledge of God, then God will not observe his wickedness or call him to judgment. 

However, denying the consequences in no way dispenses with them. "But You do see, for You note mischief and vexation, that You may take it into Your hands; to You the helpless commits himself; You have been the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till You find none. The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; You will strengthen their heart; You will incline Your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more" (Psalm 10:14-18).

How Can I Know that the Bible Is the Inerrant Word of God?

The Christian philosopher and apologist Gordon Clark once wrote, "Because God is sovereign, God's authority can be taken only on God's authority. As the scripture says, 'Because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself' (Hebrews 6:13)" (from God's Hammer, p. 39). His point was that confirmation of authority comes from higher authority. However, there can be no authority higher than God by which to confirm what He says. By His own authority, therefore, He declares His own truth and authority. 

The thoughtful person sees this and asks, "But isn't this circular reasoning?" And it is. Yet, we can see the impossibility of an alternative if we ask a parallel question: "How can you prove logic without presupposing logic as the basis for its proof?" 

The thoughtful Christian might ask whether the unbeliever would be convinced by that argument. And the obvious answer is that an unbeliever would not be convinced. Yet we must deny that his disbelief is based on a reasonable doubt. On the contrary, his rejection would arise from his own presuppositions against God's authority. Those presuppositions are the inherent nature of unbelief (Romans 1:18). 

On the other hand, we know that there are many Christians who receive the Bible as God's word, and that it is necessarily, therefore, inerrant. I am one of those Christians. Yet that belief did not arise from a consideration of a chain of logical arguments or archeological verifications. 

So, from where did my belief come? 

Clark quotes from the Institutes of John Calvin: "It is, therefore, such a persuasion as requires no reason; such a knowledge as is supported by the highest reason and in which the mind rests with greater security and constancy than in any reasons; in fine, such a sense as cannot be produced but by a revelation from Heaven" (I. vii.5). By "revelation," Calvin meant no such thing as a voice whispering in the believer's ear. Rather, in the process of effectual calling, the Holy Spirit causes the man's spirit to recognize the truth of the Scriptures as he reads them or hears them preached. 

This concept was picked up later (1646) in the writing of the Westminster Confession of Faith (I:5), the doctrinal statement of the world's Presbyterians: "We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts." The Westminster divines added to Calvin's argument that Scripture provides good reasons for recognizing it as the Word of God. Yet the unbeliever suppresses his awareness of those qualities (Romans 1:18). He cannot recognize them exactly because of his unbelief (I Corinthians 2:14). He cannot be argued out of his unbelief, because his unbelief is a matter of sin, not ignorance. 

The case here demonstrates why we never see an apologetical situation in the New Testament in which Jesus or the Apostles ever argued for acceptance of Scriptural proofs. Even when Jesus faced Satan and when Paul preached to the pagan philosophers of Athens, each argued from Scripture as his starting point, not as a subsidiary point requiring proof. 

We must remember the promise of God: "So shall My Word be, that goes out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). God promises success to His word, not to our attempts to appeal to the fallen intellect of the unbeliever. "Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures" (James 1:18). There has never been any other way by which God has converted His elect (Romans 10:8-15).

The Ten Essential Doctrines for Biblical Apologetics

From "Covenantal Apologetics," by K. Scott Oliphint, pp. 48ff: 

1. The faith that we are defending must begin with, and necessarily include, the triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - who, as God, condescends to create and redeem. 

2. God's covenantal revelation is authoritative by virtue of what it is, and any covenantal, Christian apologetic will necessarily stand on and utilize that authority in order to defend Christianity. 

3. It is the truth of God's revelation, together with the work of the Holy Spirit, that brings about a covenantal change from one who is in Adam to one who is in Christ. 

4. Man (male and female) as image of God is in covenant with the triune God for eternity. 

5. All people know the true God, and that knowledge entails covenantal obligations. 

6. Those who are, and remain, in Adam suppress the truth that they know. Those who are in Christ see the truth for what it is. 

7. There is an absolute, covenantal antithesis between Christian theism and any other, opposing position. Thus, Christianity is true and anything opposing it is false. 

8. Suppression of the truth, like the depravity of sin, is total but not absolute. Thus, every unbelieving position will necessarily have within it ideas, concepts, notions, and the like that it has taken and wrenched from their true, Christian context. 

9. The true, covenantal knowledge of God in men, together with God's universal mercy, allows for persuasion in apologetics. 

10. Every fact and experience is what it is by virtue of the covenantal, all-controlling plan and purpose of God. 

Paul at the Areopagus 

The Nature of Unbelief and the Necessity of the Omnipotent Power of the Holy Spirit

 As Moses approached the end of his life, he faced the prospect of leaving his people to the leadership of someone else, Joshua. Under such circumstances, it is natural for the outgoing leader to believe that his successor will be unable to match the leadership that he had given. It is just part of the fallen nature of men to think that no one else can do the job as well as we could. 

He gives a sermon to Israel, warning them of consequences if they failed to be faithful to God, or, in contrast, the blessings that would come from faithfulness. In that sermon, we find this paragraph (Deuteronomy 29:2-9): "You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. But, to this day, the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. And when you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came against us to battle, but we defeated them. We took their land, and gave it for inheritance to the Reubenite, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites. Therefore, keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do."

Moses gives a partial recapitulation of the miraculous events that Israel had seen, ranging from God's judgments on the Egyptians, sustaining them in the wilderness, and, most recently, the defeat of Sihon and Og, powerful Canaanite kings. But, in the midst of that recapitulation, he says something odd: "But, to this day, the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear" (verse 4). 

God had given Israel every possible evidence that He was real and that He had chosen Israel as His special covenant people. We read this passage and assume that any rational people would understand that Jehovah is God, with absolute power over the nations. Yet, we know that Israel quickly descended into idolatry. In Judges 17:6 (and repeated in 21:25), we are told, "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

How could there be such a disconnect between the evidence of their eyes and the unbelief in their hearts? 

Moses tells us how: "To this day the Lord has not given you heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear" (Deuteronomy 29:4). The same characteristic would later be addressed by the prophets (e. g., Isaiah 6:9 and Jeremiah 5:21), and even by Jesus Himself (Matthew 13:14-15). Contrary to our view of ourselves, fallen men do not have a natural ability to see the hand of God and give Him the thanks that he deserves. Rather, we love sin more than God, and, therefore, suppress our knowledge of His reality and goodness (Romans 1:18-22). 

This inclination has significant implications for apologetics and evangelism. When we explain the Gospel to unbelievers, their inclination to reject it is not because of a lack of evidence. They already know that the Gospel is true! Rather, their consciences tell them that recognizing the reality of the Gospel would require that they repudiate sin. And they love sin more than they love God! It is not within the power of the Christian to break that addiction in the unbeliever. It is only the Holy Spirit who can do that. Yes, belief requires the power of omnipotent God to triumph over unbelief.

The Creation as Proof of the Being and Goodness of God

"For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is God!), who formed the earth and made it (He established it; He did not create it empty, He formed it to be inhabited!): 'I am the LORD, and there is no other'" (Isaiah 45:18).

I think the verse above is one of the most beautiful in Scripture. But more than its beauty is its fullness. In just two sentences, it defines and applies all of natural theology, i. e., what we can know about God from the Creation. 

The Prophet here repeats some of what we already know from Genesis 1. Like Moses, Isaiah begins with God. However, he tells us more than Moses did. He specifies that it is Yahweh who is doing the creating. We know from other places that Yahweh is the name of the preincarnate Christ. Thus, the Prophet is telling us what Paul would later repeat: "By Him [i. e., Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16).

Then Isaiah announces - twice! - that the events he is describing show that He is God! And we know from the rest of Scripture that He is God the Son. He made the whole physical universe, thus excluding even the possibility of other gods. And He created purposefully! God's interest has never been in dirt and grass. The goal toward which His work of creation was aimed was always Adam, and in him, the rest of the human race. Where Moses built up step by step to the crowning creation of man, Isaiah makes straight to the point: The creation came into existence not for its own sake, but as the ideal home for mankind. To state that truth is to pronounce doxology, as we see from Isaiah! 

There is also a significant philosophical declaration in Isaiah: the creation was purposeful, with mankind as the goal, bringing into creation the image of God. In contrast, the humanistic philosophy of evolution claims that all occurred by chance, including the coming of man, so that a man has no more significance than a flea, or a weed, or a rock. 

That distinction has consequences. For example, because of our understanding of man as the image bearer, it has been Christians historically who have built schools and hospitals. Education and medical care make no sense if men are merely a random and temporary conglomeration of chemicals.

There is also an apologetical element in Isiah's statement. The atheist thinks that he is clever when he demands proof for the existence and goodness of the biblical God. The Christian knows that all that the atheist claims for evolution actually points to God. and the Scriptures tell us that the atheist knows this, too, but has suppressed that knowledge (Romans 1:18-21).

The Intolerance of Jesus

"Tolerance" has become the theme of our age. Even among professing Christians, the phrase "thus saith the Lord" has been replaced by "you shall not judge." Judging is defined as denying the validity of anything the other person wants to believe or say or do. It is never tolerance for the person who advocates values or morality or the Bible. The only absolute truth, now, is that there is no absolute truth. 

Yeah, that is a self-refuting worldview, which is why we also see irrationalism's enthronement as our cultural guiding principle. 

The Christians who proudly quote Jesus, "You shall not judge" (Matthew 7:1, out of context), snarl in response if anyone quotes something else that Jesus said about judgment: "Judge with right judgment" (John 7:24). That is because the first quote, ignoring its context, seems to support the spirit of the age which has been imbibed by these Christians, while the second exposes it as a pagan intrusion. That exposure cannot be tolerated by today's tolerant Christians. 

We have other intolerant teachings from Jesus, as well. 

For example, in the Epistle to the Church in Ephesus found in the Revelation (Rev. 2:1-7), Jesus praises that church: "I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves 'apostles' and are not, and found them to be false" (Revelation 2:2). This church is praised by Jesus for their intolerance of evil men! That is totally opposite the milquetoast Jesus of today's post-modern tolerant Christian.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Epistle to the Church in Pergamum (Rev. 2:12-17). Jesus actually chastises that congregation: "I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of My mouth" (Revelation 2:14-16). This congregation is noted for its tolerance! The Christians here are noted for their tolerance of those who teach the doctrines of Balaam and the Nicolaitans. We may not know exactly what those doctrines were, but the wrath of Jesus is apparent. Wrath against what? Against the toleration in the church for heretical teaching! 

It is apparent that the Word of God teaches nothing like the doctrine of tolerance advocated by so many of today's professing Christians. Instead, they have adopted the attitude of the humanist, and baptized it by quoting ad infinitum, "You shall not judge." In contrast, the consistent message of the biblical Jesus is that we shall judge, or we shall be judged, and harshly! 

Ancient Pergamum

 

Mormons, the Canon, and the Trustworthiness of the Bible

While this appears on April 1, it is not a joke.

One of the ways that Mormons attract novice Christians to their religion is by undermining the trust of the Christians in the Bible as the word of God. A major thrust in that effort is to point to books named in the Bible, but not included in it, such as the Book of Jasher. If the Bible is trustworthy, the Mormon asks, then how have those books been lost?

For example, the Mormon scriptures, the Book of Mormon, claim (I Nephi 13:26), "For they have taken away from the gospel of the lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away."

In contrast, the Book of Mormon is said to contain "the fullness of the gospel" (Doctrine and Covenants 20:9), "the fullness of the everlasting gospel" (27:5), and again "the fullness of the gospel" (42:12). Yet, mysteriously, the books supposedly lost from the Bible never appear in the Book of Mormon, or any other Mormon Scripture. If they were so valuable, why are they not found in "the fullness of the gospel"?

Smith's Scriptures

More interestingly, the "missing books" also don't appear in Joseph Smith's "translation" of the Bible, supposedly written through supernatural inspiration. He doesn't restore these lost books! In addition, Smith lost another book, the Son of Solomon! If the Mormons are correct about the Bible, then they refute their own "prophet," because he increased the supposed defection of the Bible! This is the man of whom "God" said, "I have sent forth the fullness of my gospel by the hand of Joseph Smith" (Doctrine and Covenants 35:17).

The essence of this is that Christians have nothing to fear from this challenge from Mormons. If the Mormon claim is true, it undermines their own religion. In other words, if Mormonism is true, then Mormonism is false!

The truth of these books which were supposedly lost from the Bible is that they were never part of the Bible. They were consulted by the Bible writers, and the relevant information entered the biblical text through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is comparable to this blog post. I have cited books which I have not included in the text itself. Are the books, therefore, lost? Of course not!

Paganism and the True and Innate Knowledge of the Triune God

The Apostle Paul records something interesting in Romans 1:18-23: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."

In this passage, Paul is referring to the knowledge of God which all men have, through the Law of God recorded in each man's conscience (Romans 2:15), reinforced by god's revelation of Himself in His works of creation (Psalm 19:1-4): "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." 

As Paul tells us in the Romans passage above, the inherent knowledge of God is received with hatred. The unregenerate man seeks to escape his awareness of God and our accountability to Him. One way in which he does so is to replace the true, triune God with mute idols in the forms of men and animals (see also Isaiah 44:9-20). Therefore, the existence of paganism is not a neutral historical event; it happened exactly because men are sinners under the wrath of God, that we know our condition, and we crave some solution that will quiet our consciences. In the case of paganism, the effort is to quiet our consciences while being able to continue in our deception of autonomy from the true God, who yet rails against the unregenerate man in his conscience. 

And Paul was not speaking from mere theory, but from his experience in the pagan world of Greco-Roman culture (Acts 17:16-34). "The religion he [Paul] proclaimed was preeminently that of a sinner - adapted in all its provisions to the spiritual necessities of a fallen being under the righteous government of God. The altars around him were dumb, yet pregnant, witnesses that the wants which the Gospel undertook to relieve were not the fictions of fancy, nor the creatures of superstition, but the urgent demands of the soul" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity").

Contending for the Faith Against False Teachers

I have regular apologetic and evangelistic interactions with pseudo-Christian cults, mainly Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Oneness Pentecostals. In each case, someone always says something like this: "Why do you judge us? Why can't you just go practice your beliefs, and leave us to practice ours?" It's a form of guilt manipulation, trying to make it seem as if I am just a big meanie.

Yet, their repeated "why's" have an answer: the commandment of Scripture.

First, we have the warning against false teachers: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you'" (Jeremiah 23:16-17). The danger of false teachers is that they leave their followers under the wrath of God, while blithely imagining their safety. That is why false teachers are so popular. "While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape" (I Thessalonians 5:3). And it isn't just the cults which are the danger here. The popular TV preachers, such as Joel Osteen, are equally dangerous. They promise peace and prosperity, but never mention sin or the wrath of God. So their followers march, grinning and satisfied, into the waiting maw of Hell. 

In the face of such deceivers, the Scriptures give me a stark warning: "If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand" (Ezekiel 3:18). If I see the false teacher and those deceived by him, and I make no effort to warn them of God's judgment, then God holds me guilty of their death! 

That's why the New Testament also gives every true Christian this commandment: "I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3). I do not face accounting to cultists or other false teachers for challenging their errors; I face the wrath of God if I fail to do so.

The Irrational and Self-Refuting Worldview of the Secularist

That our modern world, with life in its multitudinous forms is the result of chance has become dogma in the United States, taught in public schools and accepted as the educated belief in the media. To deny the secularist orthodoxy is to place yourself in the inbred gap-toothed hillbilly camp for most people.

Okay, so it is orthodoxy, but is it true? Are their rational reasons for denying it? Is there a possibility for the self-respecting Christian to hold to a different worldview?

Yes, too all of those questions.

Science and education require a consistent, rational, predictable universe, exactly the opposite of chance. Yet the secularist blocks that incompatibility from his mind, lest the foundations of his worldview be shaken.

The creation is intelligible exactly because it was created by a personal, rational God. Chance could not produce an understandable universe. It is just as we know that the straight furrows of a farm require an organized mind to have made them. Unbelievers avoid this basic logic because it implies an absolute God to whom they are accountable. They want a self-existing universe because then there could be no morality or accountability. Yet reason requires a rational universe. Therefore, they depend on the biblical worldview to provide a context for reason and morality, but then deny that same worldview to maintain their myth of autonomy. 

In other words, if the secularist worldview is true, then it must be false, because it cannot sustain itself. The secularist worldview can only be sustained if the biblical, Christian worldview is true. However, again, if the Christian worldview is true, then the secularist worldview is false. No matter how you examine it, the secularist worldview is unsustainable, and, therefore, irrational. 

The Example of Jesus for Our Apologetic

My objection to classical apologetics is that its proponents believe in finding a common ground with their anti-Christian opponents. Part of that is that they do not use Scripture as their evidence, because the unbeliever doesn't consider the Scriptures to be authoritative. Therefore, the apologist claims, he must appeal to the unbeliever on the basis of something that unbeliever considers authoritative. 

Do you see a problem with that principle? To the Christian, God and His word are authoritative. Of course the unbeliever rejects that authority, because he is an unbeliever! Therefore, when the Christian seeks an authority that the unbeliever accepts, he is accepting the very premise of unbelief, that God is not the ultimate authority (Genesis 3:5). In order to defend Christianity, therefore, the classical apologist starts by accepting the worldview of the unbeliever. That is to surrender before joining battle!

We must, in contrast, use the Bible exactly because it is the highest standard, the word of God Himself. If we turned to another standard, then we would be adopting the worldview of the atheist. It is illegitimate for the atheist to expect us to adopt HIS worldview in order to discuss worldviews. In fact, THAT would be circular reasoning. It is legitimate, however, for us to argue from our own worldview. Would an atheist allow us to forbid him to argue from a secular source? Obviously not. So, his assertion would be the application of a double standard, and should be labeled as such. 

Ask this question: When confronted by unbelief, what apologetical standard did Jesus apply? Look at His confrontation with Satan, the highest standard of unbelief, in Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13. In the face of each challenge, His response was, "It is written..." If Jesus, God incarnate, depended on Scripture for His apologetic, how can men do less? And let us not forget that it is only His word that God promises to empower: "So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). 

Apologetics According to Paul

In argumentation, the speaker uses the higher standard to prove the lower. But what happens when one reaches the highest standard? Even God had to face that question: "When God made a promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself" (Hebrews 6:13). A man takes an oath by saying, "So Help me God." But God had no such higher authority by whom to bind Himself.

In a potent description of apologetics, the Apostle Paul said, "We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ" (II Corinthians 10:5). But how did he do that? Did he appeal to some "common ground" with the unbeliever, in order to use it to prove the existence of God? No, never. Rather, he tells us that unbeliever knows that there is a God (Romans 1:18), but suppresses the knowledge. In his discourse on the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34), this is the common ground he sets out with the pagan Athenians. He cites examples in their own literature to show that they already had an awareness of the biblical God. That is, he cites pagan poets not to prove God, but to prove the suppressed knowledge of God. To put it philosophically, God is the source of logic, not its conclusion.

"The whole discourse [of Paul on the Areopagus] seems to have been conducted on the principle that the Gospel is its own witness - that the facts of redemption authenticate themselves; that we can reason from its phenomena as effects to their origin in the mind of God, as we ascend from nature up to nature's cause. Paul has evidently taken it for granted - for there is no allusion to any external proofs of the divine mission of Jesus, and no intimation that he himself wrought any miracles in Athens - that, as the heavens proclaim the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork, so the death and resurrection of Jesus, when properly apprehended, are their own proofs that He is the power of God to salvation to everyone that believeth. The work itself proves its divinity" (James Henley Thornwell, The Necessity and Nature of Christianity).

Elijah and the Rise of Persecution in America

We are living in time where it is becoming more difficult to be a Christian in America. The humanists have succeeded in defining the right to free exercise of religion as a right to private exercise, such as at home or in church. But definitely not in the public square. The First Amendment has been turned on its head, from a protection of religious practice from government oppression to a means to sterilize public discourse, so that only humanism is acceptable as the basis for public policy or morality.

Christians seem to have forgotten the answer the Apostles made to such pressure in their own day: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). And that assertion was made in the face of times to come, when all of the Apostles died a violent death, except John, and even he was imprisoned for a time. We do not, yet, face that danger in America.

The problem is that this public pressure has put American Christians into a crisis of loyalty. To whom do we owe our highest loyalty? To government, especially in the face of its own lawlessness? Or to God?

The Scriptures are clear: "You shall not fall in with the many to do evil" (Exodus 23:2). In giving witness against evil, we are not allowed to consider whether the crowd agrees with us. The only consideration we are allowed is whether we agree with God. If so, then our calling is to stand for what God says, whether everyone is with us, or everyone is against us. And that can be a very difficult thing.

The Prophet Elijah faced the situation where he alone stood for the true and living God, against a culture that had turned to pagan gods: "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away" (I Kings 19:10). This is serious depression. Elijah saw himself alone against a culture given over to paganism, and he had no strength to continue the fight. But what did God answer him? "Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him" (verse 18). God had another seven thousand faithful Israelites who needed to witness Elijah's faithfulness, because they, too, thought that they were alone. Every one of those men and women believed that he was the last of the faithful.

And that is the calling of each of today's American Christians. We are to remain faithful, no matter the opposition we face. Our first concern is faithfulness to God. However, we also need to consider the other timid Christians who need to be strengthened by knowing that they are not alone, and then they may be empowered to speak, as well.

Presuppositionalism and Evangelism: The Innate Knowledge of God

Paul says something that people, even professing Christians, don't like: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:18-22). His point here is that all men know God and our accountability to Him, because he has revealed Himself in His works, so that no man can claim ignorance as an excuse for unbelief. Unbelief is the result of a choice, not of innocent ignorance.

Paul applies that principle to his evangelistic sermon at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:16-34) at about the same time that he was writing Romans. "So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: 'Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: "To the unknown god." What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In Him we live and move and have our being’;as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring'" (Acts 17:22-28). Paul uses the altar to the "unknown god" to prove that the Athenians know about, but do not know savingly, the one true God. Therefore, he has come to reveal to them the God that they have known about, so that they may now repent of the deliberate ignorance (verse 30), and come to know the God who had been unknown before. Even the pagan poetry which he quotes, Paul uses as evidence that there is a breaking out of the underlying knowledge of the true God, though that knowledge had been suppressed in the confusion of the Greek mythological religion. 

Contrary to traditional apologetics, biblical apologetics does not try to prove the existence of a god. The unbeliever already believes that. Therefore, the presuppositional apologist directs his apologetic to what the unbeliever already knows, but wants to avoid, with the goal being the unbeliever's repentance.

The General Revelation of God and Romans 1:18

I frequently refer to Romans 1:18:  "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth." The significance of this verse is that it is a denial of the assertion of some Arminians and most unbelievers, especially the Mormons, that God is unjust to condemn to Hell those who have never heard the Gospel. Those people are supposedly never given a chance to convert, and, therefore, should not be punished for something that they did not know. That assertion is false. As Paul explains (see Romans 1:16-23 for context), no one is ignorant of the existence of God and our accountability to Him; rather, the unbeliever suppresses that knowledge. Should a person not be accountable for what he knows, even if he avoids that knowledge? Thus, the justice of God is vindicated.

Paul's explanation here is not something out of the blue, as if it originated with him. In fact, it is a concept that he brought forward from the Old Testament.

For example, we see Psalm 97:6 (compare Psalm 19:1-4): "The heavens proclaim His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory." This is what theologians call "general revelation," God's revealing Himself in the creation, exactly what Paul also mentions in Romans 1:20. And notice that the Psalmist explicitly tells us that the revelation is visible to all cultures, refuting the assertion of the critics mentioned above. 

Consider also Psalm 98:2-3: "The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God." Here the Psalmist repeats, in even stronger terms, his belief that God has revealed, not just His Person, but also that He is the Savior available to all who believe. This is a poetic version of John 3:16, showing in what way God loves the world and then His plan for believers. 

The Scriptures preclude any rational accusation of injustice against God.. He reveals Himself, His goodness, and His plans. If men refuse to see that revelation, because it would deprive them of their pet sins, then He can only be said to be just in His consequential judgment upon them.

The Bible as Our Apologetic

I have a real problem with classical apologetics. That is for two main reasons. One is that they lead to a generic deity, not necessarily the God of the Bible. Arguing, for example, from a supposed "first cause" could as easily be fulfilled by Allah or Zeus. The other reason is that they concede, as a starting point, that God does not necessarily exist. That concession is supposedly to establish a common ground with the unbeliever. Common ground with unbelief? What does that Bible say about that? "What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?" (II Corinthians 6:15). The starting point of the Christian apologist is with something that Scripture denies! And I have even seen R. C. Sproul, a man whom I otherwise respect, go though his apologetics system in order to determine, not that God is necessarily who the Bible says He is, but rather that God probably exists. "Probably exists" means "maybe doesn't exist." How is that a God-honoring apologetic? I don't believe that it is. And that is probably why you never see the Apostles use such an approach. 

What is the biblical apologetic? "I shall have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in Your word" (Psalm 119:42). Do you recall the answers that Jesus made to Satan during His temptation (Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 4)? Did He try to find common ground with Satan? Of course not! Rather, He rebuked the Devil with Scripture! 

In apologetics, we must remember one thing: the unbeliever, regardless of his claims, does not really believe that God does not exist. On the contrary, he knows perfectly well that God exists, but is suppressing that knowledge (Romans 1:18-22). Thus, there is no need to establish a common ground. The believer and the unbeliever share a common belief in God. The difference is that one is living according to that belief, while the other is living contrary to it. That is why unbelief is inherently irrational and unstable. And exposing that irrationality was Paul's methodology when he preached at the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34).

In His word, God has given us the most-powerful weapon possible for our spiritual conflict: "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12; see also Revelation 1:16 and 2:16). And He guarantees its success: "So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).

Is There Injustice in God?

A lot of people, both among professing believers and among unbelievers, express moral objections to the commands of God to the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites - man, woman, and child - during their conquest of the Promised Land. For example, we read in Deuteronomy 7:1-2 God's commandment: "When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them."

And we have the record of Israel's partial obedience to the commandment: "We captured all his [i. e., King Sihon of Heshbon] cities at that time and devoted to destruction every city, men, women, and children. We left no survivors" (Deuteronomy 2:34). The same thing happened in the defeat of King Og of Bashan: "We devoted them to destruction, as we did to Sihon the king of Heshbon, devoting to destruction every city, men, women, and children" (Deuteronomy 3:6).

Is that harsh? I think any sane person would say so. But does that mean that it was unjust? That I must deny!

The problem with the objections to the Canaanite pogrom is that these objectors have an unbiblical view of man.

According to the Bible, all human beings (excluding only Adam and Eve before the Fall, and Jesus) are sinners, rebels in our hearts against our Lord and Creator, the triune God in Heaven (Romans 3:23). And the consequence of sin is death: "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine: the soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). This is the point of error in the argument of those who accuse God of immorality; they fail to understand the wickedness of men or its consequence.

However, we notice that, though all are sinners, not all die at any particular time. That is certainly true. God restrains His justice for a time - for most. And that is the issue. After giving them 400 years to change their ways (Genesis 15:16), God chose to apply His justice to the pagan residents of Canaan through the Israelites at that time. If He chose to carry out His justice on those people at that time, but restrains it for a time for the rest of the world, is that injustice? No, it's mercy. When the false believer or the unbeliever accuses God of immorality in ancient Canaan, he is really denying the mercy of God to the rest of the world in the rest of history.

And that error is deliberate. Unrighteous men are not ignorant of God. Rather, they "suppress the truth through unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18). They throw up this smokescreen in their minds, so that they can avoid their innate knowledge of the reality of God and our accountability to Him. This is the moral equivalent of the child who sticks his fingers in his ears and sing-songs, "La-la-la I can't hear you," when his parents are chastising him for misbehavior. Does that exempt him from the consequences? Of course not! Nor does this smokescreen from unbelievers protect them from the justice of God.

What Goes Around Comes Around: Self-Destruction Through the Self-Deception of Unbelief

God, through the Apostle Paul, tells us, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth" (Romans 1:18). That is, God has so revealed Himself in His creation (see Psalm 19:1-4) and in the nature of man that every man knows Him and our accountability to Him. However, the unbeliever, in order to maintain his myth of independence, suppresses his knowledge of God.

Since he is acting against his own knowledge, the unbeliever must resort to irrationality, because logic doesn't permit the holding of contrary "truths." That pesky Law of Non-Contradiction pops up. Therefore, the unbeliever must deceive himself, as well as others, in order to avoid the rational contradictions in his worldview.

"All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
     but the Lord weighs the spirit...
There is a way that seems right to a man, 
    but its end is the way to death." 
-Proverbs 16:2, 25

One of the main ways that self-deception occurs is by stealing from the biblical worldview, in order to fill the gaps that unbelief cannot supply. A godless universe cannot provide a foundation for morality, for example, but no person can function in society without a sense of right and wrong. Therefore, the mind of the unbeliever, in order to satisfy his God-given conscience, "invents," he believes, a system of morality, though, in actuality, he has merely expressed the law written in his heart (Romans 2:15).

That is why what seems right to him actually leads to death, that is, the spiritual consequences of God's wrath at his rebellion. His conscience reveals what his heart really knows, that God is, and that he is accountable to Him. Yet, in his profession, he denies those truths, and, instead, curses God and His Word. His self-deception has thereby, not relieved him of that accountability, but rather brought him under the consequences of it. 

Atheism and Self-Imposed Blindness

There are certain standard challenges that come from opponents of biblical Christianity, such as atheists.

One of those challenges is the claim of the supposed immorality of God in the destruction of the Canaanites at His command by the conquering Israelites, after their exodus from Egypt. And let me say that it is true that He commanded that, though Israel was less than thorough in obeying His command.

Would that action be immoral if committed by men without God's command? I would certainly say so. Apart from self-defense, just war, and a few cases of criminal justice, it is always immoral for any human being to kill another. I can say that because God has said it, one of the big Ten: "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13).

Does that apply here? No, it doesn't. Why? Because of the exceptions that I carefully enumerated. In particular, criminal justice.

Even when a man thinks he has justification to kill another, he is one sinner contemplating vengeance against another. And that is the key error in the logic of the atheist. By not accepting the word of God, he does not understand the sinfulness of men. He considers men to be innocent by default. It is as if a man were judging a dark gray spot as white, because he is viewing it against a black background.

However, the biblical perspective is that of a God of perfect holiness examining sinful men. He is judging men, not against each other, but against Himself, black spots against a background of snow white. By that standard every human being is deserving of capital punishment. Therefore, His justice is perfect in the destruction of the wicked Canaanites. It is His mercy, not justice, that we see in His refraining from such destruction for all men, including those Israelites. The atheist focuses on a false claim of injustice, while closing his eyes to the mercy.

However, even with those Canaanites, God showed a mercy that no atheist ever notices. In spite of their particular evil, such as the practice of human sacrifice, even of their own children, God expresses mercy to them, in giving them an extra four-hundred years to repent (Genesis 15:16). No human court has ever granted that level of leniency!

In addition to the repetition of the same questions, another thing that I have noticed is that the answer never matters. Not only do the same questions get asked over and over, but the same answers are given, over and over. That indicates to me that they are getting the questions from each other, not from their own investigations. And, since each of those challenges has been answered, their repetition indicates to me that it isn't the answer that is important, but rather maintaining the challenge in their own minds. That is, I believe that the atheist holds on  to that question for protection, a protection not offered by the answer. Protection from what? From knowledge.

The Bible says, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" (Romans 1:18-20). The atheist claims not to believe that there is a God, but that is a deception - not a deception to the person to whom he makes the claim, but rather a deception to himself. Everyone knows that there is a God and that we are accountable to Him. The atheist knows that, too, but he hates that knowledge. The atheist wants to believe that he is god over his own life, so he suppresses the knowledge that his desire is a delusion. Then when his challenges are answered, his self-deception is endangered. Therefore, he is forced to ignore the answers. Unbelief is never a matter of reason, but rather only of self-deception.

That is why conversion can only happen by the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The blinders, put in place by the unbeliever himself, must be ripped away, just as happened in the conversion of Paul (Acts 9:18).