All right, well we'll get started today with Apologetics Session 4 and I think this is actually Session 5 because Session 4 last time I watched the video. So we'll get started and we'll do just a quick review and I thought it would be good if we read our key verses again this week just to kind of remind ourselves of what the Scripture has to say about apologetics and so we start with 1st Peter 3 15 and Says but sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you and yet with gentleness and reverence." So that's kind of our key verse behind the whole issue of apologetics is that we are to be what? Ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account. And again, it tells us how to do that with gentleness and reverence. So as we're talking to people about the issue of apologetics, we're to do it with gentleness and reverence and not beat him over the head with a 2x4 or anything like that, but do it with gentleness and reverence. Then our next, our second key verse is Jude 3, and that says, as soon as I get to it, Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt a necessity to write to you appealing, yet you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. So Jude 3, we are to contend earnestly for our faith. So those are two key verses in our study of apologetics. And then just in review, we talked about the four positions in apologetics being classical, which is their starting point as a classical apologist, is reason. And sound reason will lead you to the truth, influenced by rationalism, and then the difference between rationalism and empiricism. We're going to cover that here just in a minute, just as a review. And then we have evidentialism, which is another position in apologetics. And this evidentialism stresses biblical miracles. So we're looking at evidence. Think of the word evidentialism as evidence. Its focus is on evidence supported by reason, and that's influenced by empiricism. So we've got classical apologetics, evidentialism, and I just wanted to talk a little bit to review us with the difference between rationalism versus empiricism. And so rationalism is the philosophy that knowledge comes from logic and a certain kind of intuition. So when we immediately know something to be true, all right, without deduction. And it gives the example there such as I am conscious. We know we're conscious. That's a rational thought. And so it's thinking rationally. And rationalism, basically, a lot of it came out of the Enlightenment period of time when the rationalists were influencing society as a whole with government issues as well as religion. Not everything that came out of the whole school of rationalism was good. And so in this, a rationalist would hold the. that the best way to arrive at certain knowledge is using the mind's rational abilities. So as we rationalize things, we think about them. And the opposite then of rationalism is the school of empiricism, all right? When you think of empiricism, think of the word empirical, you have proof, physical proof, and the view that knowledge comes from observing the outside world. So that's, I always think of Empirical thought, you know, it's something that you can prove from the outside world. We think of mathematics as empirical. You know that, you know, 2 plus 2 is 4. That's empirical data. We, you know, in my line of work, we think about and we talk about empirical data versus anecdotal data. And anecdotal data is something that just you have heard or you have observed, whereas empirical data is something you can actually put a number to and make it work. So in practice, almost all philosophers and scientists use a combination of empiricism and rationalism. They think back of the best way to arrive at a certain knowledge is using the mind's rational abilities. and then they're using empirical data to come up with their rational thought. So scientists and philosophers use that combination of both empiricism and rationalism in their way of thinking. Then the third school of thought is presuppositionalism, and that's a lot of where many of our modern apologists, I think, are coming from, is from a presuppositional viewpoint, which is basically, it presupposes God's existence, and the truth of scripture relies on the power of the gospel to change lives, and so they think, and they teach that the only way a person can change is being regenerated, founded on circular reasoning. And the argument against presuppositionalism is that it tends to confuse apologetics with evangelism. So, and we talked a while back about the difference between apologetics and evangelism and the two ways we're going to do that. We're not going to get into that too much this morning. But when I think of Cornelius Van Til, who has written books on apologetics, I would classify Mr. Van Til as a presuppositionalist. that the only way a person can change is through regeneration, right? Through Christ and God working in their lives. But the presuppositionalist is a little bit circular in that you're also having to presuppose God's existence. So when we're talking to somebody, in today's world especially, can we presuppose that somebody knows of God's existence? Not anymore. I mean, when you think of people you talk to, and people that are outside the circle of Christianity, a lot of people don't even know about Christ anymore. They have no concept of God. So can we, as we're talking to somebody and presenting the gospel, can we presuppose that they know what we're talking about? I don't think we can anymore. Fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, we could what? much everybody at least knew of God and knew of Christ, but didn't make him a Christian, but they at least knew of Scripture and God and Christ. But today, we have seen so much of an influence of the world and how we have lost the I guess, this generation to the concept of God and their knowledge of God. So, and again, the argument against presuppositionalism, not really an argument, but just tends to confuse evangelism with apologetics. The fourth school of thought then is Reformed Epistemology. It's based on general revelation. And we know general revelation is what? We can look around us and we can see the existence of God. So the sense of God is common to everyone and it's strongly influenced by post-foundationalism. fundamentalism and foundationalism mixed up, but foundationalism. So, but can we also, when we're talking to people today, can we make the assumption that they recognize general revelation, that they recognize the existence of God through observation of the world around us? And I would say no. I mean, so many people have been influenced by evolutionary I'm going to call it theology because that's what it is. Evolution is actually a religion. They don't see God in the world around us. No longer can we assume that there is any sense of God common to everyone. Sometimes I have a little bit of issue with the presuppositionalist and the Reformed epistemology because of this circular reasoning that we recognize that there is a God and we just need to expound on that and also this general revelation. People today just don't recognize that general revelation exists. So that's kind of our review and I wanted to go into a little bit more about evidentialism versus presuppositionalism. And so the evidential apologist is making the assumption that the presentation of evidence can convince minds to open to the work of the Spirit and conversion. So, again, the evidentialist is what? They're presenting evidences. They're presenting things that we know to be true from the Bible. But, again, when we look at that, can that evidence open the mind of someone who is opposed to the Gospel? I don't think it can because they don't have that sense of that general revelation. They don't have that sense of presupposing that there is a God in existence. So we have to be able to argue against that evidential apologist who is thinking that all the evidence that exists in scripture is enough to point a person to Christ. The presuppositional apologist assumes that Christianity will make sense only after the Spirit has moved in your life. Once you presuppose that Christianity is true, everything will fall in line and make sense. There's some truth to that, isn't there? Once you know Christ, have Him as your Savior, you're going to do what? You're going to obviously recognize the influence that God has in your life. But again, can we operate under the presupposition that everybody has a knowledge of Christ and God. I don't think we can at this point in our society. So, you know, it does make sense that after the Spirit's moved, everything will fall in line. Which, again, does make a lot of sense because what? God enlightens us and he gives us the knowledge once we're saved. So that leads to then the position of and the concept of combinational apologetics, which lies somewhere in between the evidentialist and the presuppositionalist. So when we look at this, it's combining some of the thoughts of a presuppositionalist along with the evidentialist. So we'll talk a little bit about this concept of combinational apologetics. And first and foremost, when you're talking to somebody, what do we need to do? We need to learn where our partner in the discussion is coming from. So we can't, again, we can't make the assumption in today's society that people have any concept of God and Christ. We have to, what, almost assume that they don't. And I go back to several years ago, church we were attending had a booth at the fair, and I wasn't there, but someone shared that They were talking to people and presenting the gospel, but so many people that came through didn't even have this concept of who God was or the saving knowledge of Jesus. It was really eye-opening to me to think that people didn't have any knowledge of God. You know, I think back, before I was a believer, that I knew God existed. There was no, I guess, ignorance on my part that God didn't exist, but I didn't have, obviously, a saving knowledge of him, and I didn't have any concept of what Christ does for us, but on the other hand, today people just don't know. So when we learn to recognize where our partner in the discussion is, we almost have to start where? That they don't know anything. Right? That sounds kind of bad, but they don't have any knowledge of God. They don't have that general revelation in the issue of recognizing that God is in existence. So we also have to think about how evidences look different to everyone depending on one's presuppositions. So when we have a presupposition about something, we may see something totally different than what the way someone else sees it. And so we're affected by what? Our presuppositions and how our training, our history, everything has led us to the point where we are today that we see things through a lens that may be different than what someone else is based on and looking at based on our presuppositions. So I think back on the, there was a television show a few years ago about how they would have an event that would occur and they would have three or four different people see this event and how everybody saw it differently. And it was amazing that you would have something that you would think would be a factual event, and everybody would see it the same way. But as we were watching it, we would all see things differently based on our presuppositions. So it's really kind of an interesting thing when you think about talking to a police person, that they're looking for evidence of a crime and they're interviewing witnesses, you know, what? The witnesses are seeing things differently, aren't they? Not everybody is going to see things in the same way. So that's why we need to recognize where our partner is coming from as we're having the discussion, is that evidences look different to everybody. There are some things that obviously are hard and fast evidences, but other things are open to our presupposition. So when we think about that, we've got to be careful in how we present the evidences to an unbeliever. Because we need to be what? Very factual. We need to be able to As it says here, recall the second half of our key verse, we need to approach them with gentleness and respect and knowing that they probably do not have the same presuppositions that we have. They are not looking at the world the same way We're looking at the world, so we have to be able to recognize that. But again, like I said before, we can't hit them over the head with a 2x4 or the Bible. Because what? They just may not be seeing the world as we see it. So we have to do it again with gentleness and respect. And again, we need to recognize that both evangelism and apologetics have limits. And recognize that who's doing the saving? God's doing the saving. We can present the gospel as an apologist or someone who is an evangelist, but what? We have to recognize that no matter what we say, no matter what we do, it's still up to God, isn't it? And God is the one that's doing the saving. I think back several years and a pastor was almost bragging about the fact that someone would have never been saved if it hadn't been for his preaching that night. And it's like, I just have a hard time with that because that then does what? Gives man the credit, doesn't it? And so, you know, we have to recognize that God is the one that's actually doing the saving. So, as we become more familiar with apologetics and evangelism, what do we need to know? We need to know our subject. And that is probably key to this entire thought process, is knowing our subject. As William Craig has said, we should know our subject profoundly and share it simply. So, what does that say? We need to know what we're talking about, right? We need to have the knowledge. and we need to know that our knowledge of Scripture is profound. But can we go out and can we approach someone who doesn't have our worldview or doesn't have our set of presuppositions with a complex argument about the validity of Scripture? No, because what's it say? We need to share it simply. The gospel is simple, isn't it? And as it says, even a child can understand it. So we need to be able to present it in such a way that it is simple, so that people can understand it. But in order to do that, we have to know our subject profoundly. And I think when I'm teaching a class in my professional world, in order to do that, I need to know what? I need to know the subject. well and but many times I have to be able to present it in such a way that it's understood simply and I was just helping somebody the other day with preparing for an exam and she said you make this so easy and but it's knowing that subject deeply and profoundly that allows me to be able to put it in simple terms for a person that doesn't have the same level of knowledge and understanding that I may have. So, as we strive to become better evangelists and better apologists, what do we need to know? We need to know our subject profoundly. I'm not saying that we need to have degrees in theology and evangelism and things like that, but we need to be able to have a strong understanding of what we're presenting. So we need to strive to continue to grow in our Christian maturity. So as we start out as believers, when we're young believers, we don't have a strong knowledge of everything that's in scripture. And even 40 years of being saved, or in Paul's case, 50 years of being saved. I was going to add a huge, huge number to it, Paul, but I'll respect my elders. But you know what? We still don't know everything, do we? And we still have an opportunity to learn and study. And that's one thing that I enjoy about listening to others, whether it's a podcast or a radio program Sunday morning worship service, CLA, it's an opportunity to learn more and to develop a stronger, deeper understanding of what our faith is. So we need to continue to grow in our Christian maturity. I know a lot of believers who are saved and then what? Stop right there. And they only want the milk, they don't want the meat. And those individuals like that are probably never gonna become, what, strong evangelists or strong apologists because they don't have any desire to go beyond the milk and to get into the meat. So we need to have a strong faith, not based on emotions or experiences, but also onto intellectual confidence. And one of the things that I think we can struggle with, particularly coming from a reformed perspective, is what we lean heavily on intellectual confidence, don't we? It becomes more of a intellectual exercise and we kind of, at least from my perspective and my thinking, becomes less of a heart and more of a mind issue. And I always go back to R.C. Spruill was talking about the intellect and the heart and how we need to have a balance between intellectually knowing something and then also being able to share it from the heart. So he called that a census and fiducia I think he was talking in latin terms during this presentation but We do need to have what we need to have an intellectual confidence and But at the same time we need to be able to share the gospel from our heart and as a person again We go back to that Our scripture with gentleness and reason so we need to be able to do that Not based on emotions or experiences. All right, so it's you know Being saved can be a pretty emotional experience, let's put it that way. But, on the other hand, as we look at our own Christian walk, it's based on what? Gaining growth and maturing. And, you know, maturing is not necessarily just an emotional experience. It's studying. It's listening. It's learning. And so we need to be able to do that. And, you know, I think many times our brothers and sisters from the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement are what? Very emotional and very experiential. not a whole lot on the intellectual side of it, so they rely heavily on that emotional experience. I attended a charismatic church for a while when I was away from home working and the friend that I was staying with was charismatic. I mean, those people, we can learn something from the charismatic people in their love of people. first time I walked into this service, I mean, these people were like all over me, you know, and say, Oh, we're so glad you're here. You know, we'd love to have you and etc. I mean, and they remembered my name the next week. And, you know, so it, it was obviously very emotional, very experiential. But again, it was very, very light on the whole issue of intellectual confidence. So we need to have a balance, don't we? And I think that's part of the key, is recognizing that we need to have the knowledge, we gain the knowledge by studying scripture, and again by listening, but again, we can't separate totally the emotion or the experience from it. Next question is, can we know truth? And that's, as we've talked before, truth in today's society has become what? Relative, right? Your truth is not my truth, and vice versa. that is totally wrong and that truth is not relative. Truth is truth. And so can we know truth and can we express that? So again, many people rely on the scientific method. You know, listen to the science. Haven't we heard that over the last few years? It's incredible to me that people that are not believers or people that are on the, what could we say, the more liberal side of life are like, well, yes, you know, you listen to the science. Well, they threw biology right out the window when they talk about listening to the science. So they rely on the scientific method as the basis for the truth. And so what is the scientific method? approach these people, we need to be able to speak on their terms. So when we talk about the scientific method, the first step is to observe a phenomena, what's happened, what has occurred. Then we ask questions about that. Then we do what? We formulate a hypothesis. And so after we form the hypothesis, we're going to make a prediction based on the phenomena that we have observed and the hypothesis. And so then we do what? We test the hypothesis. You know, is this true? And can it be replicated? And that's really the true scientific method is something we observe the phenomena, we develop a hypothesis, and then we test the hypothesis. And can it be replicated? And without replication, we don't really have what? A result that can be considered as true. And so we then organize and analyze the data. And we draw conclusions. And then we what? Iterate the process. Repeat it. Can it be repeatable? And so that's really the key. And that's where I think so many people forget about the scientific method today is what? That iterative process. Can it be repeated? Can it be repeated another time, and a third time, and a fourth time, and get the same result? Because then you actually have what? You have something that can be replicated, and you have something that is a true result and so it's the truth. So there are self-evident truths. And so a lot of people argue, well, what you're telling me can't be replicated in science. And not every truth can be replicated in science. But there are self-evident truths. And so the question is, can something be known outside of the scientific method? And the answer to that is yes. There are things that are self-evident. We talked before about math. And math is what? That's self-evident, isn't it? We all know that 2 plus 2 is 4, all right? And the square root of 9 is 3. And things like that, we know that. And, you know, somewhere somebody figured that all out prior, but we know it's true. We know if we hand two fingers on this hand, two fingers on this hand, how many fingers do we have? We have four, right? And so that's self-evident and there's not any need to really prove it. Internal knowledge basically is saying that I know that I exist, all right? I know what I had for breakfast. Most of the time. Sometimes I can't remember what I had for breakfast at lunchtime, but that's a fact. I should know what I had for breakfast. Cannot be disproven because I know what I had and that I exist. Somebody will say, well, that can't be true. because I think you had post-toasties for breakfast, when I know for a fact I had scrambled eggs and bacon. And so, that's a self-evident, it's internal knowledge. And the next step in this process is logical propositions. And so, as it says here, many things that can be known without having to prove them. And this is where logic comes in, so that A does not equal non-A, all right? We know the difference between a chair and a table. So those things are what? Logical propositions that we know that a chair is not a table and we know that, you know, a deer is not a cow, and so we know those, those are logical. And then we have ethical propositions, and so certain things are just known as wrong, all right, and so I've got down here, I would argue that this is becoming more nebulous in today's society, but there are things that are commonly known as wrong. And again, we're going back to this whole thought process today that truth is relative, but there are still things that are commonly known as wrong. Wrong behavior, wrong answers, things that are wrong. And, you know, I always go back to my time on the school board and dealing with teachers and that they did not want to deal with truth, because I got several times, well, that's how you see it. That's your truth. That's not my truth. And so go to court sometime, all right? And truth becomes, Michelle's shaking her head no. Truth becomes what? Very relative, doesn't it, Michelle? I mean, you know what is true, but have an attorney on the other side And they can twist that truth up so many different ways that you don't know what end is up when you get all done, but stick to the truth. And so, but there are things that are commonly known as wrong. I remember this teacher arguing with me at a school board meeting was, you know, the very thing about truth. And, you know, it was like, you know, that, red is red, and blue is blue, and green is green. But they said, well, you know, that may be true for you, but that's not true for me. And it's like, that just doesn't make sense. And they came from a thought process that was all about relativity. And so it was relative truth. And it was very frustrating to try and deal with people like that. But again, what do we need to do? We need to go back to our knowing our person we're talking to, because we're dealing with more and more people that truth does not exist and that it's all relative. So when we get right down to it, faith is the root of all knowledge. And faith is synonymous with trust. This provides insight into our pursuit of truth. Many today insist only on trusting facts that are provable through the scientific method. However, as we talked just a slide or two ago, many truths are explained by self-evidence, and so the scientific method is not the only method to arriving at truth and to examine it. And scientific method is only qualified to examine truth claims that are material. All right? So you can test something that's material. You can say, yes, this is material. a stone, and I can prove that this is a stone. It's material. It's something that exists in a form that everybody can recognize. But the scientific method cannot test for supernatural truth. We can't run through the scientific method for issues of faith, because what? They're supernatural. They're based on faith, not on the scientific method. And so, what do we do when something can't be proven? We trust, right? We have to build that trust and our faith is based on our trust. And what do we trust on with our faith? We trust in the truth of God's word, right? And our faith is built on that. So it's a supernatural. We can't run it through the scientific method, but we know that we have that trust and our faith is built on that trust. And then truth is confirmed by scripture. And so Christianity is the most evidential and most provable worldview among all other religions. And so God is revealed as the creator, cares for the universe, as well as for our estranged relationship with him. We do have an estranged relationship with God, don't we? And, you know, fortunately, we also have a mediator who stands between us and God in the form of Christ. And so, he cares for us. A means of reconciliation, again, like I just said, is provided by God through Christ. Proof of the Gospel is validated in historical documents by the occurrence of supernatural events. Most notable, a resurrection from the dead. Because what? We have in Scripture, we actually have evidences, don't we? We're going back to this evidentialism theory of apologetics. We have evidences. Evidences that are presented historically as fact and in Scripture. We have Lazarus raves from the dead. We have the truth in that Christ was in the tomb for three days, and the third day he rose again. People saw it. People wrote about it. And so we actually do have evidences that support our position and our trust in our faith. So then we're going to talk about some categories of theism and atheism because that is really something that we deal with on a very regular basis in today's world. So what is theism? Theism is simply a belief in a deity. We have very, you know, there's pantheism, there's atheism, there's all kinds of theisms, which is basically a belief in a deity. So, atheism, God does not exist. And so that's people who are atheists do not believe in any existence of God whatsoever. Agnosticism, we can't know for sure that God exists, so it's one step closer to God than an atheist, but we're just not too sure that God really does exist if we're taking an agnostic position. And argumentative atheism is a total lack of belief. Polytheism, we deal with that in society today, is the existence of many gods, typo there. So we see people that think that there's many gods, and Hindus, Buddhists, they have you know, multiple gods. And then pantheism, as I mentioned before, everything is God. So a pantheist, you know, sees God in trees and animals and they worship trees and they worship animals and things like that. So they're pantheists. So I had an example that just flew out of my head of a pantheist that I've talked to before. But they just, you know, God is everything and we can pray to trees and we can pray to, you know, We know that's not true, but again, what do we need to know? We need to know who we're dealing with and what their thinking is, so we can argue effectively against their position. I have a cousin who is an atheist. And, you know, we've witnessed to him, his siblings have witnessed to him, I've had friends witness to him, and he just absolutely refuses to believe that God exists. Pretty sad, actually, because he has no basis for living life, really. So, how do we know there is a God? And this, I think, is fundamental. We know that there's a God, but if we're dealing with that atheist, or if we're dealing with that pantheist, how do we know that? So, we have what I've got as the ABCs. He makes us aware of him. Human nature suggests to us that there must be something beyond ourselves. Even a lot of Other theists recognize the fact that there is something beyond ourselves. But God makes us aware of him and he gave us the Bible. So scripture is the evidence that God has given us, documentation of his nature and his plan. So we have what? We have evidences, don't we? We have the Bible. We have the truths that exist in scripture. And so we know that that evidence is sufficient for our faith because we trust in it. So we have the Bible, and then we can see His creation. And again, we go back to that general revelation of God that exists in the world around us. We can see the miracle of creation. How can there be a creation without a creator? And so we go back to the fact that this world has been created by an all-knowing creator. And so we need to be able to turn that then into a discussion with persons, people that we're trying to reach through our apologetic outreach. So this time of year, pretty hard to believe there isn't a creator, isn't it, when we look at the beauty of the world around us? How could this just happen? And if we want to argue from a scientific method, or if people say, well, this all happened through evolution, well, Why aren't monkeys still turning into humans? And there's no replication. So they can't argue that evolution is scientific because there's no replication. There's no repeatability to it. So that's it for today. And next time, we'll look at some of the arguments for the existence of God. And I'm also thinking that we're Nearing the end, within probably a couple more sessions, we'll have a pretty good conclusion for our study of apologetics. So, let's close in a word of prayer.