PAPER NO. 95

RATIONAL PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETICS

Prolegomenon

Definition and Method

  1. Definition of Apologetics

    1. A rational defense of one’s basic beliefs in response to challenges; required of all who engage in public discourse.
    2. Christian apologetics is a rational defense of Christian basic beliefs. A rational defense offers proof; proof is not persuasion (evangelism, witnessing etc.).
  2. Definition of the Christian Faith: Christ is Savior and Lord

    1. Christ is Savior from sin and death.
    2. Christ is Lord who rules to make God known.
  3. Due to sin remaining, the Christian is more or less conscious and consistent in understanding the meaning of confessing Christ as Savior and Lord.

Apologetic methods differ according to the measure of one’s faith, that is, understanding.

  1. Current apologetic methods can be classified as follows with many degrees of admixture:

    1. Evidentialism: reliance upon human experience (empiricism) for knowledge.
    2. Presuppositionalism: reliance upon non-inferred sources (intuition and testimony) for the knowledge of God.
    3. Classical: infers the knowledge of God from what can be known by all.
    4. Cultural: infers the need for God from life without God.
  2. Rational Presuppositionalism (RP): reliance on reason to understand meaning and settle disputes.

RP seeks to consistently argue from the more basic to the less basic at every stage of discourse.

RP begins with common ground, lays foundation from general revelation (GR), scripture/special revelation (SR) and Historic Christianity (HC), and seeks fullness through a worldview expressed in culture.

Christian Apologetics must show that Christ is Savior

  1. Sin

    1. Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) from the beginning (Genesis 3:21) to the end (Revelation 22:3).
    2. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

Sin is rooted in autonomy, putting self in the place of God to determine good and evil.

Unbelief is without excuse in light of the clarity of general revelation (Romans 1:20).

  1. Left to oneself no one seeks God, no one understands, no one does what is right (Romans 3:10).
  2. From general revelation: moral evil (sin) is an act contrary to one’s nature as a rational being.

It is to neglect, avoid, resist or deny reason in what is clear about God.

  1. Death

    1. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). This death is spiritual not physical. It is present and inherent in sin, not future and imposed. Sin and death reveal God’s justice (J).
    2. Physical death and every form of the curse/natural evil is imposed because of moral evil.
  2. Natural Evil

    1. Natural evil (toil, strife, old age, sickness and death / war, famine and plague) is a call back from moral evil, not punishment.
    2. Natural evil serves to restrain, recall and remove moral evil. It is a call to stop and think.
  3. Mercy

    1. Natural evil as a call back is mercy (M).
    2. Natural evil requires special revelation to show J and M.
  4. Scripture

    1. Christian Apologetics must show the need for special revelation.
    2. SR must show J and M in Christ and him crucified for sin and death, grounded in the clarity of general revelation and the inexcusability of unbelief.

Christian Apologetics must show that Christ is Lord

  1. Jesus Christ is the eternal Word of God incarnate who rules to make God known (John 1:1-18).
  2. Christ exercises Lordship through a spiritual war (between belief and unbelief), which is age-long and agonizing, and in which good overcomes evil (Genesis 3:15; Revelation 19:17-21).
  3. The truth of God begins with foundational doctrine from GR/SR/HC.

Foundation leads to worldview, to culture (a way of life), to the City of God, to the earth filled with the knowledge of God (Isaiah 11:9).

  1. Christ sends the Holy Spirit to lead the church into all truth through the pastor-teachers who, in response to challenges and after much discussion, come to agreement summed up in creeds and confessions, the basis for unity of the faith of all believers.

The Holy Spirit brings persons into the truth through the work of regeneration and sanctification.

  1. In the spiritual war every thought raised up against the knowledge of God which divides the church and divides mankind must be made obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5; Matthew 28:18-20).


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