We are going to continue in our discussion on apologetic methods and tonight we're diving into what's called the classical method and so just kind of some brief explanations at times. Please jump in if you have anything to say. I also would like to have an ongoing dialogue and talk about looking at hearing what this method is, hearing your positive thoughts on it, and any questions and critiques you might have. So let's pray and we'll get started. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the night, we thank you for your word, we thank you for our desire to understand more how we may glorify you through our evangelism, through our defense of the faith, in the ways that you allow us and allow us an influence in other people's lives and allow us a voice. Lord, may we use all these tools that we talk about for your glory, for the hope of Christ in the unbelieving heart. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. So does anyone want to give a definition of apologetics? Nailed it in your face. Okay. Defending the faith. Do we want to get a little more descriptive? What does that mean? Are you putting people in Kimuras when they're saying, I don't believe in Christianity? It's an option. A little leg sweep. What's defending the faith mean? Giving a reason for the hope that lies within you. OK. What's that mean? Put together a structured defense of why you believe what you believe. I guess I just reworded the same thing. Anyone else? No. Anyone else? I appreciate what you brought up last week about training your kids up. be able to understand and know what the Bible is talking about. And so I guess that is kind of... Although I have said, Brad bucked off last week, but he asked me this afternoon, at what point do I just punch him in the face? A little bit of regression. For those of you who weren't here last week, I was talking about training and what it looks like for someone to know more than just how to say a verse back at somebody, but actually kind of articulate theological truths of the faith. And I give an example of training your children in kind of some of the older confessions of faith is a good way for them to see the big picture about God. And I use Josh as an example. As a kid in his music class, the teacher was talking about the evolution of the music. How did you see how you had one piece and then another piece, but the pieces by themselves were okay, but then when it all went together, you see how it evolved into something beautiful. And people were like, yes, and one kid, oh, like, oh, kind of how we evolved into monkeys, from monkeys. And Josh, some of you have known him for a really long time, was very quiet, stood up and yelled at the kid, we don't come from monkeys, we were made in the image of God. And then they started screaming at each other. And so I was talking about, you know, we trained him up, wasn't the best delivery, perhaps, but he was really offended by it. And then so, but in order, since I bragged on my kid last week, I do have to be honest, now he just wants to lay hands on this kid. So I have to talk to him about that tonight when I get home. Like a holy laying hand? No, no, no. There's no holiness. There's no holiness involved. There's just the rat-a-tat-tat of hitting the punching bag. And once I've trained him pretty proficiently, and then kind of looking out there, and he's got the punch ugly face. And what's going on? Only only option I have left at all right. Where's mom okay? That's chapter 7 of my parenting book Good other other. Thank you for bringing that up about training and training kind of a big idea of what? What we're defending That was the whole chain of of being able to interpret the Bible, having tools to interpret the Bible, what we call hermeneutics. I'm not using the big words to derail it and go, oh, it's academic. It's just the word that we use. But having the tools to properly read the Bible and all the books, and then seeing it as a big whole of God's redemptive story from Genesis to Revelation, which is biblical theology, and then taking all the pieces and logically categorizing them or systematizing them in systematic theology Everything that it says about God, and then you're gonna talk about that. Everything it says about man. What does the Bible comprehensively say about man? What does it say about sin? That's systematics or dogmatics. And out of all that understanding flows things like, okay, now how do I live? Which is ethics. And then how do I evangelize? And how do I defend the faith? Apologetics comes out of a flow of all that training we talked about. So good. The verse that we always want to look at, and so I'm going to read it again, just a few verses this time, 13 through 17, is where the apologetics verse is usually kind of always centered on, is 1 Peter 3, 15. So we're going to read it again, starting in 13. Now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed, having no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your heart, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, what Randy was quoting. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, not if you are slandered, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. I should just read that to Josh. For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. So the whole verse of 15 begins with honoring Christ in your heart as Lord, as holy, and then being prepared to make a defense. And make a defense is where the Greek word apologetics comes from. And be prepared to make a defense for anyone that has asked for the reason of the hope that is in you. So there's a couple of things that are clear here. Number one, there's some type of dialogue going on with someone, right? If there's someone that's coming to you to ask you about the hope that is in you, that means there's already there's something that's going on between you and this unbelieving individual. Of course, the power comes from the Holy Spirit and the honoring Christ as Lord and as your heart is holy. And being prepared is what we're talking about here, knowing the faith and understanding the faith. And so The reason of the hope that is in you, obviously, is the hope of Christ and the resurrection. And then, of course, the really difficult part, doing it with gentleness and respect. And then the gentleness and respect has a meaning, the defense of the faith. Even if someone is venomous and vile towards you about your faith, responding in kind isn't supposed to be what we do. Now one of the things I want to bring up first here about apologetics tonight is that a lot of the things we're talking about classical method is something from the medieval period. It's a 12th, 13th century construction really. by Thomas Aquinas. Things like evidences or evidentialism are fairly modern really with pretty much the onset particularly there's reason has always been attached but as it's come as a system, evidentialism is much older than, I mean much younger than classical. It's a 20th century particularly with archaeology coming into fruition so much with manuscript evidence and things like that. And then one was mentioned last week, presuppositionalism is even younger, which is really in the 1930s to in its, you know, newborn state to a little bit later. And then you have kind of things that have branched off of all of these things as well, and continue to morph into, you know, we talked about presuppositionalism, but saying that doesn't really tell you what it is, because there's several different either views of it, or there's some that take part of it. And so we're trying not to nail that knowledge. What I want to say is that we're talking about things that haven't been around for a super long time in the history of the church in terms of the methods we're looking at. So I wanted to briefly talk about, does anyone know what the defending of the faith looked like in the New Testament? Fred, you had a question, I'm sorry. Yeah, I just, when you said that, it's fairly new. It just kind of got me thinking about kind of the early apologists like Justin Martyr. I was going to, I was going to get into them. So save it for after we get to church. I was going to go to Justin right away. What about, what do we see in the New Testament when it comes to defending the faith? Do you see instances of that? Stephen and Acts. Yeah, and Acts. There's a lot of it in Acts, right? Yeah, so Stephen, what happens with Stephen? For doing what? Got stoned with gentleness and respect. No, I'm talking about his... Even at his death, saying, you know, forgive them. He was proclaiming. Yeah. So keep going, Jeff. Sorry. Oh, that's pretty good. He basically stoned my thunder. He was proclaiming the gospel. And he shared, basically, like the Old Testament. Yeah, he did. He just took the whole Old Testament and said... Remember all these things? He's finished it. And they reviled him. What else in that? This is actually a big one. Yeah, it's a big one. Yeah. Yeah, Paul likes quoting the Greek philosopher, too, in some of his writings. What are these examples of? Of defending the faith. Like, where do you see defending the faith in the New Testament? Acts is mainly the main one, because we have the, it's a narrative, and so you have these interactions going on, versus just a personal letter, or something like that. But yeah, the one on Mars Hill is probably the big one. He's going to a place where, I wouldn't say religious, pluralism was appreciated, but new ideas could be heard. And then the judgment of the thoughts would be based on an already existing philosophical paradigm that they would have held to. And so one of the interesting things is Paul approaches them, and what does he do? What does the dialogue look like? Anyone remember off the top of your head? Yeah, they're saying his arguments are small or shallow. essentially then pretty quickly he launches into his God who created the world and everything in it, and then he, you know, in Luke's account, he gets pretty quickly to the resurrection. He interacts with what they believe, but he basically presents the gospel in terms that they can understand. Is Paul, when he's talking about the Jews versus the Gentiles So like you're talking about like in like when he's writing in Galatians and Romans you could certainly say it would be an Apologetic or a way to defend the faith, but it's more instructing them Because they're already believers and so for looking at the first Peter 315 it's looking at the unbeliever and the believer and so what he's doing with the believers he's instructing them and what what is a In Paul's mind, one of the biggest errors that he's seen, every church he's either founded or wants to go to, is the Jew-Gentile rift that is existing in the early church, that one is looking down on the other and saying, live like us, and the other's like, we don't have to live like you at all, and he's trying to show them that they're all that ancestry, all that stuff, it's all done away with under the now shared union with Christ. And so that's more of a catechesis. That's more of instructing people in the faith so that they understand it better. So that when they go out, now whether they be Jew or Gentile in Rome, and they're witnessing to a pagan, they can tell the pagan, everyone is equal in Christ. And they can tell the Jew, all of what you were waiting for has been fulfilled. And that becomes the defense of the faith, because it's going up against an unbelieving mind, and it's going up against this antithesis between unbeliever and believer, or rebel and child of God, if that makes sense. But certainly instruction, yeah. We're still talking about examples. Yes. So Paul before the Sanhedrin, Acts 22 to 23. Yep. To be fair, he does use quite a, what do you call it? an aggressive tone by calling them whitewashed tombs and telling them that God will strike them down. Paul struggled with sarcasm and a little aggression at times. One of my favorites. Yeah. But he does say that the reason why he's standing before them to begin with is because of his hope. His hope. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it interesting? It seems like Paul has less patience with particularly Jewish religious leaders than what he does with Gentiles, who he interacts with. Right. Because he's being tried by Pharisees, and he's saying, I am a Pharisee. I am a Pharisee, yeah. So I kind of know what I'm talking about. He had very little patience. Little patience with the religious leaders, because they led the people astray with the very word of God. One of the things I want to talk about, as we talk about it, if you want to go back and read, I'm going to read just the interactions of Acts 17, just meaning, and then Paul, if you've never noticed this before, I just wanna read these quick things, so look at what it says. 17.1, now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, and there was a synagogue of the Jews, and Paul went in as was his custom. And he explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead, saying, this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. Now who is he interacting with? Believers or unbelievers? Unbelievers. Unbelievers who have what, though? Basis of the Bible. Yeah, they have the law. They've been practicing it. And then so, of course, things happen. If you remember a long time ago, I stole the illustration from a friend of mine, where you go through the litany of what happens everywhere Paul goes, but you say it in the way of a pastoral search kind of thing, or a job application. Last place I went to I caused a riot and I was beaten and thrown out of town And then I went to the next town and I caused a riot again and that town after that was okay I stayed for a while But then they tried to kill me and then I went to so so it's like one of these things where Paul everywhere He's going so after he does that in Apollonia and then Thessalonica, of course where we know he later sends letters to the new church and The charges, they're dragged by Jason and by the city authorities, and they're against Caesar. And so then it says in 1710, they immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue. And then, of course, this is the famous. Now, these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. We often use that. But who was he talking to in that verse? Believers or unbelievers? At that point, they're still unbelievers. But the narrative that what Luke is saying is like, but they showed themselves more eager to hear and understand what Paul was saying. And then in 12, many of them believed with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. And then it says, but then the Jews from Thessalonica learned and they went there. But so now he's gone to two places in this world. He's visited synagogues in this area. He's had one instance of almost dying and then another instance of many believing and coming to faith. And then this one, and now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked with him as he saw the city full of idols. So he reasoned in the, where? Synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Believers or unbelievers? Unbelievers. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. Some said, what does this babbler wish to say? Others say, he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him to the Areopagus, what Fred was talking about. Now, he's gone to a few towns now, been thrown out of them, made some converts, and finds himself in Athens. And then as he's simply, doing his thing, going to the synagogue and telling people in the marketplace what's going on about this Messiah, about this Jesus. They invite him to the place where they have all of this, where all these divinities, all these idols that were riling Paul up, he sees and he gets invited to it. May we know what this new teaching, for you bring strange things to our ears. We wish to know, therefore, what these things mean. And then so going on, moving down a little bit. Standing in the midst of the Eupagus, men of Athens, I perceive in every way you are very religious. For as I've passed along, I observe objects of your worship, altar with an inscription to the unknown God. Where you worship as unknown, though, 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 men, nor is he served by human hands. Though he need anything, since he himself gives all mankind life, 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 boundaries of their dwelling places, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each of us. In him we live and move and have our being, as even one of your poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. And he goes on, and he kind of uses all of this scope of, in a very revised manner, a biblical revelation of who God is from creation to Christ. And this is what the response was. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. What did Peter say was going to happen? When they reviled you. And then, some mocked, but others said, We will hear you again about this. So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysus, the Arapagite, and a woman named Damaris and others with them. So I say all that to say that defending the faith, the confrontation between belief and unbelief happens in the book of Acts often. But if you really want to see a rapid fire instance of it, chapter 17 of Acts is where you can go to. It just keeps happening over and over again. And so these are the biblical examples of this happening. Acts is the best one because it's a narrative, whereas the epistles are teaching to people who are believers in order to arm them or equip them for when they're out evangelizing and defending the faith, and of course, equipping the church. Examples from the early church, because we talk about these methods being later on in church. Examples from the early church, Fred mentioned someone named Justin, who is usually called Justin Martyr. He's probably one of the earliest authors who you see in a comprehensive manner interacting with with Roman authorities. In his boldness, he writes to the emperor of Rome. So, Fred, if you want to... Since you brought him up, I don't know if you want to... Talk about what he did? I thought that's what you wanted to get at. I was just asking for kind of where you were categorizing, because he kind of, he didn't use... sophisticated, rational, logical arguments, but he did appeal to reason. But it was like, Christians are really good people. you know, they're good citizens. Yeah. That's where they pay their taxes, you know, things of that nature. And I guess it's, you know, when we think about evangelists, classical, you know, kind of where would you put that? And I think probably closest to classical probably just the reason is a big was a big thing with a lot of the early church guys who were writing to rulers, they would use I don't know why reason points to the truth of Christ. But yeah, Justin's interesting, because he often is he's more defending Christians than he really is the Christian faith. He's saying, Why are you telling us? You know, the Syriac Phoenicians do this, and the so and so rebel in this way. We're just living quiet lives. We pay our taxes, and we take care of the abandoned children. You know, you could you could if you didn't want a child, you can leave it to elements to die. And so one of the things that the early Christian church did is they would take those children and raise them. And someone would take them in their family. And so they were known for things like that, which, when explaining to the emperor is like, we're good citizens, we're going to raise this child to be a good citizen, like, in what Rome always wanted more than anything was for the next generations to actually produce and be good citizens. That's how any empire continues, is that the citizens actually reproduce and have the next generation. And so his argument, yeah, it doesn't really fit in any category that we're going to study. But it's just an early example of how the faith was defended in that manner. So are you saying that classical is like reason? You'll see. It's a part of it. Yeah. Reason's a part of it, sure. So when you put someone like Ray Comfort, they're law and gospel driven, so give Ray Comfort. So he goes more kind of like, you know, he kind of appeals to the heart and for the people that are. He's the one that likes the law. Away the master. Yeah, I know, I know. I wouldn't really classify him as an apologist. I think he's an evangelist. And I know that's. No, no, it definitely affects that. He's the guy that always brings up the law. I've seen clips. And he's with the guy from Growing Pains? Yes. It's a wonderful theology book. And he started left behind, which was so good. He was a growing fan. He wins. He wins. All right. OK, so here we go. Now, for those of you that have studied apologetics for a long time, you're not going to be terribly satisfied with how simplistic I am going to kind of bring these methods down. And all I can say to you is, I don't care. And so the reason is I want to give a few tools, primarily for people who maybe have never thought of them, and then allow discussion of what maybe you feel like I'm missing. I am biased when it comes to apologetics in terms of method. I'm not going to say which one is my favorite. And it's pre-Numanism. But many of these, but I'm also not a tribalist when it comes to apologetic method like many of my heroes are. I think that there's good and there's usefulness in many of these. And since they're methods that were created by people who were trying to figure out ways to defend the faith, if I feel like straddling the fence on it, I can. And so can you. But let's dive into what the classical argument kind of is. I say that because I have to sum it up pretty quickly. For those of you that I'll try to think of, we talked about William Lane Craig being one of the guys who's written a lot and debated a lot in the last 40 years as a classical apologist. He's obnoxious, though, and so he's not kind of someone I like to recommend. But if you've read R.C. Sproul's book on classic apologetics, where in the second half of the book he's trying to critique presuppositional apologetics, his classical apologetics book has been a standard for a long time. And he deals with it really well. But there's a lot of, again, this is the most popular and widely used method. For those of you who weren't last week, if you've ever read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, it's literally the classical method. It's what he's doing. So, here we go. I think, incorrectly, some people take classical, historical, and something called cumulative case apologetics, and they stick them all under evidences, which I disagree with. So I'm using classical separately. Classical apologetics stresses rational arguments for the existence of God, and historical evidence supporting the truth of Christianity. So since it uses historical evidence, people try to put it under the umbrella of evidences or evidentialism, but it precedes evidentialism by 1,000 plus years. So it's not a fair comparison. Not 1,000 years, I just put it way in the future, flying cars. So about 800 years. It stresses rational arguments for the existence of God. It would probably be more accurate to say of a God or of a higher power. Would the guys who know this agree with me on that? And then historical evidence supporting the truth of Christianity. And so what they would say was they would look at and they would appeal at what you would call the natural law. and common grace. And the idea that you can point someone because of that part of them that is yearning or God yearning or God longing to show them either the orderliness of the universe or the complexity and of nature and all these different things, and you can point to truth that's proving that there's something that did that. And then the watchmaker, someone brought last week, you know, you open up a watch and you see all the intricacies within it. Someone had to design that. That's one of the classical arguments, one of the more recent ones, of course. But so they use rational arguments for the existence of a god. and historical evidence supporting the truth of Christianity. So it's a, it's a kind of a bait and switch tactic, not in a bad way. It's bring them in with this argument. Can you get someone to rationally agree? There's a high probability that there is a God or a higher power who has set everything into motion. Now, believe it or not, it's actually a really, especially in the West, And even in the East, that's going to be something. Think about people believing in, even though it's a post-Christian culture, they call it. If you sat down with an average teenager and asked them if they believed in a god, whether they were from the Bible Belt or else, what do you think most of them would say? Now, if you believe no, you haven't been paying attention to the most recent polls and surveys of high school kids in America. Almost across the board, 80 something plus percent believe in a god. Now, exactly. That is not the Trinitarian God of the Bible whom they believe in. But there's all kinds of gods. But think about it. In the approach of an apologetic, if you sit down and get someone to agree with you that there's more to what we see than just us, something did this, there's a large proportion of the population that's gonna sit down with you and go, I agree with that. Did you ever agree with that? A lot of agreements. So, and then it becomes the switch where, okay, you've agreed there's a God, and then you switch to the historical evidence supporting the truth of Christianity. Stress will be placed on miracles as a confirmation of claims of Christ and of biblical prophets and apostles. So some people say this, and I'm using it. Classical apologetics is characterized by two steps, or they call it two-step apologetics. Theistic arguments, and then evidential Christocentric arguments. Meaning, you're showing them their first argument is that there's something, the theistic argument, that there is a God. They agree with you. Now you move forward with these evidential arguments about, well, the only answer has to be the God of the Bible. Does that make sense? Have any of you read Near Christianity? Do you remember anything about it? So the opening chapter is he just kind of, this was a radio address, he conversationally is talking about the order of the universe, the beauty of nature, the need for something to have started all that. And it's the first half of the book. And then he, now what the brilliance of it is, is that he never says apologetics once. He just goes in this argument, very convincing argument, that something is out there, and something has done this. Now look, in the second half of the book, or the second part of the radio addresses, he begins talking about who could it possibly be. And then he begins to talk about the Old Testament, creation. He goes on to talk about the prophets, the law, And then everything that happened that we can look at historically that is true, that we know, you can look back in history and see actually happened events in the life of Christ. He was a real person. You can't deny that, right? The person's agreed with you about there being a God. And now they don't have to agree with you what you say about the Bible. You don't even bring up inspiration. You don't even bring up inerrancy. You just talk about this is what the Bible says. And we're waiting for this one, all the way back from Genesis 3.16. Well, here we can look together in history and see this Jesus of Nazareth actually is a real person. Do you believe that? Yeah, everyone knows that. Okay. Well, if he's a real person, do you know that we really have quite the historic record of what does life look like? And what does death look like? It's in Jewish records, Jewish historians, not just Christians, Roman historians. It's all recorded there for us that this is a real person who was crucified and died and then his body disappeared. What do you make of that? You see how it goes? And so they've already agreed with the theistic aspect. And then once you take them from all of the Old Testament to where you don't even need them to agree with you. And then you take them to the New Testament, where they see the truth of the historicity of Jesus, and then you end it by saying, He's the one that fulfilled all those things that I was talking about earlier when we were talking about the Old Testament, that was Him. And then you transition into, now what about you? What did I say about man when we talked about Genesis? What's wrong with man? Deadness, trespasses, and sin, and the only one who can save them is the only one who created all these things, the only one you agree with. Do you see the method? Not bad, right? So the two-part process. Establish that there's good evidence for the existence of God. Second, show that Christianity is the true understanding of God. And this approach is something that's been used. Now, I will say, if you read Thomas Aquinas and you look at, say, someone like a Norm Geisler or William Lane Craig, you'll see quite a big difference or a disconnect between the two methods. R.C. Sproul even more so, because there's quite the theological divergence on what you say about man, in particular, between Thomas Aquinas and a Reformed understanding of man. Would you guys who are learning that agree with that? Yeah, I was about to say, any questions, additions? I just wanted to add to the C.S. Lewis, to your point that you have the two part and then he uses a lot of reason in his most famous argument. that uses reason is the liar, lunatic, or Lord argument, and talking about Jesus's claims to deity. So the claim that he's just a good teacher, because you can say, oh, Jesus is just a person who... I like to read the red letters because it makes me feel good. Right, we can agree, but he also made a lot of claims. So either he was a liar, which means he's not a good teacher, or he was a lunatic. He had all these delusions, which, again, not a good teacher, or he's Lord, and we have to believe him. So that's the most famous part of mere Christianity, that part. Yeah, and the classical arguments, in my mind, they're very heavy on philosophy. reason is given a high, even the reason of an unbeliever is held in a high standard, we share reason with each other as part of our imprint as image bearers. And if you, when they get that, the guy goes back to appointments, goes back to Aristotle and all that, but the idea there is that if somebody is not really well, if it's spirit aside, which I hate saying that, but spirit aside, it's generally, it's not convincing to anybody that's not familiar with the laws of logic and the logical fallacies and things of that nature. Because it's very, it's, you know, it seems it's just generally a very structured philosophical argument. Now, Lewis's presentation, C.S. Lewis's presentation is different than that. He really fills in a lot of the gaps and stuff and he really, that's about as good of a presentation as I think you can possibly have. Yeah, and I think that was why at the beginning I was saying, like, when I'm giving these real simple definitions of what these methods are, understand, if you were investigating the authors I mentioned, you're going to see it goes in infinite, you know, I'm just trying to give, like, the simplistic. And so let me, let me, okay, Eric, go ahead first. I was just going to say, I think C.S. Lewis was an anomaly, because he wasn't just a philosopher, but His training was in English. He was a literature guy. So, he knew how to tell a story. So, he can incorporate the history and the philosophy in telling the story. That's why he was so impactful. That's why he's still so effective. And, I mean, I use C.S. Lewis' method a lot when I talk to people. And, again, I think that's why. Like you said, there's a lot of philosophy involved. But if you can't tell a story, if you're boring and you just drag on, then no one wants to hear a bad story either. We're all lovers. We gravitate towards story. And C.S. Lewis tapped on that. He knew that. But I'm not a fan of C.S. Lewis at all. I'm not biased at all. I don't think I believe her. It's good when someone doesn't have a good poker face. So wasn't C.S. Lewis, wasn't he a universalist and kind of denied the deity of Christ at one point? No, he had, so this is for later discussion, but he had what I would say, was too high of a view of the ability of reason and unbelieving man. Meaning, a lot of what you'll see is that this elevation of reason is counter to, what does it mean to be an unbeliever, according to Paul in Romans 8, who does not know God, can't please him, can't do anything because of his state. of unbelief, so how is reason affected by that? And so, one of the things that William Lane Craig will say always, that he always, in any of his works, he has a little introduction that says, I do believe that the Holy Spirit is the one who's actually doing the work, because he knows what he's about to say is gonna sometimes sound like the opposite of that. It's gonna sound like I can reason somebody into, but I mean, C.S. Lewis had, he had a belief that he of his own reason was able to see that Christianity was true. Does that make sense? But that's a lot of... I mean, there's not a hero I have in the faith that has stuff where when I'm reading them, I'm like, I don't want to read that. Because people have different beliefs. I mean, if Luther or Calvin came to our church on Sunday morning, they wouldn't think we were a church. except for the preaching. No, I'm just kidding. But that's a reality. So Lewis has issues. All the guys we're going to name have had something, because we're all still falling. And so if anything, I would say what Lewis shared with Aquinas is maybe what I would say. Me, personally, I think having too high of a view of reason and conversion, I guess. I wouldn't say that. Reason is a very clear thing. that we have on our side. I mean, you don't want to elevate it too much, but if you don't have reason, I mean, God's reasonable, right? So everything is, when we preach and we teach and we go through apologetics and we'll practice apologetics, that's the basis for it, right? The reason. Using a reasonable argument. Being unreasonable would not be very... But if a reason is impacted by... So how does a person come to faith? There's an aspect of it where the Word and the Spirit are central to it. So a reasonable argument about the existence of God, absolutely, the Spirit can use that from a person of faith. of faith delivering it, but that's what I mean by reason. The unbeliever's entire being is corrupted by sin, including reason, because God is ultimately reasonable, right? And so if you are unable to understand God, it doesn't matter how smart you are, even at the very heart of it, your reason is affected in a negative or in a manner that keeps you in that antithetical relationship. One of the things I want to mention is some names who adhere to this approach. Falsely, people will say Augustine, Justin Martyr, things like that. They've said things that might have been similar, but it wasn't in this method approach. But Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, a guy named William Paley, John Locke, B.B. Warfield, R.C. Sproul, William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, and Norman Geisler. Now, out of all of them, I've said I would probably recommend reading Sproul or Warfield, but Warfield is pretty hard to understand, and C.S. Lewis, obviously. But... Did you see John Wall? Yeah. Wow. Did you? He was a Christian. He was a deist, wasn't he? Yeah, but he considered himself... Have you ever read any of his arguments for God? Yeah, but I'm saying he used to use this method he would use when he when he writes about Right, yeah, there is a god But he used the same appeal he uses the same appeal it was it was like someone said earlier it's very philosophical in nature and so it was Aquinas is still read like you go to a a school of philosophy, whether it be HBU or some other secular school, and you're going to probably read Aquinas, because of his impact on philosophy. Does everyone have down at the very least, I want to say, the two steps that really, what I would say, sum up the classical approach? Question? Yes. Because we got off the rail service. John Locke was connected with that. How did that affect, like? I say that because of my passive aggressive nature against the classical method. So I'm getting it out there right now. So how would that have affected, like, our country's founding? What do you mean? Like, with their study and reading of John Locke. I don't know if I saw anything. kind of the purposes, the apologetics, I don't think would have really affected it. But, you know, Thomas Jefferson and those guys, they weren't Christians. They were theists. And we had a creator god who just kind of, like a pack of sea monkeys, just kind of said, okay, I'm not going to talk to anybody. That's more or less what John Locke was. you know, they can say we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and so on and so forth, but they would never say you can be forgiven of your sins in Christ. So they would stop, from a classical apologetics perspective, they would just stop halfway. And they'll be other, like when you see like, there's guys when we get to other methods, you'll see that names I'll have in there where Either you don't know them or you know they're an unbeliever, but they use that identical method to describe something they call God or things like that. Evidentialism. Can you think of any aberrations of Christianity in the 20th century that use evidences to prove that they're true? Mormonism. Mormonism. What do they say? Native Americans or something. Native Americans. No, that's the counter. I don't know. They're messed up. The finding of the golden plates in the Hill Cumorah in New York. The fact that Jesus came and- Gave them Utah. Gave them Utah. The success of polygamy. Yep. The burning of the moon. No, but they appealed to an evidential argument. And that's just a reality we face. That's why when we're talking about a classical Christian apologetic, you can't stop at the first point where you're arguing for a God. You have to take the switch where you go to the history and evidences of Christianity, and particularly of miracles and the life of Christ and things like that. And then you meld the two together by showing by them agreeing with the first part, and then you showing them the second part. And then if they believe, that would be considered a successful defense of the faith. That leads to the discussion of Christ and the remission of sins. That's the hope that lives within you, from 1 Peter 3.15. Does that make sense? Like what you're talking about with C.S. Lewis? I know it's not your favorite, but for people who have a solid basis in something, if you just break down one of the things that they hold very clearly, and then they find themselves wrestling with being able to believe that anymore based on this kind of argument that's maybe never been given to them, just the enough, just, just that bit of doubt that's in there can make them start to seek more openly. Yeah, well, we're where this is really successful to believe it or not, even though I'm on it a little bit is is when you see someone like Elaine Craig, debate atheists, someone who isn't even agreeing on the first point. When you're when he's debating someone particularly like scientists, We're wanting to point at different areas of evolution like he just Destroys them. It's it's not it's it you almost have to turn it off. It's really I can't watch Yeah, well, they'll just take it to to order and they'll take it to the order of He'll go right to whatever they're talking about you talking about the evolution of the dragonfly's eyeball, or whatever it is, and he'll take them straight to the order of that, and the impossibility of what you're saying. Because what happened? Did the leg evolve first? The wing? Which part of the eyeball? You know, all these things that he'll bring up, but he'll always bring it back to this great kind of creator. That should be homework. I should send a Lane Craig with someone, you know, one of these atheists over the last two decades. Do you like Greg Bonson also? Huh? Greg Bonson? Do I like Greg Bonson? No. No, I love Greg Bonson. Do I like Greg Bonson? Very quickly, kind of a distinction, I think, is with what you mentioned, Craig and Geisler, sproles are different animals, so take them out of what I'm about to say, But these folks are, by and large, full-on Arminians. And so they believe that it is up to the human mind to make a decision to, right. And so that is, to me, the distinction between what we're talking about now and what we're going to talk about is almost that attitude of what we think the role of apologetics is. And because William and Greg, I mean, I guarantee he believes that if you give a bullet-proof rational argument, then they have no choice but to believe in God. I mean, that puts a lot of pressure on the one delivering that argument, though. I mean, I taught high school debate when I was a theater teacher, and I'm thinking of everything you're saying as the audience, like with my theater kids, it's all about what's here, and about grace, and about, but with the debate kids, if you don't know your stuff, you can't present arguments and rationale and reason, then they're, I mean, they'll eat you. Yeah, anyone that knows debate, like, watched the presidential debates over the last, Or they just put debate in, like, square quotes. And real quick, I beat up William Lane Craig a little bit, but I do respect William Lane Craig. I like him. I respect him. And I've got probably half a dozen of his books. And actually, I was just reading one last week as a part of it. But he's good to learn from as long as he's not the main guy. To me it doesn't matter if I like or don't like someone. I'm as errant as anyone. I think that this argument has proven itself throughout history and it's mainstay in terms of the fact that Christians today are still using it and seeing people come to faith. That's not the main reason. You don't want to just beat the atheists and make them look dumb on TV. You're supposed to be sharing the hope. You're supposed to be showing why The theological beliefs of the atheist who would deny having theological beliefs, but their denial of God is an actual theological position that they take. And the ability to tell them the hope that they should stop ignoring and that is there and that is before them in front of an audience that hears it is important. I think it's been so. I like the method. I like the history behind it. I like guys like Sproul and Gerstner and some of these other reform thinkers who have taken that method and applied a more robust doctrine of salvation and man. And I think it's even stronger. And there's a lot of Just a lot of positives. So what are the holes in the presuppositional? We're not there yet. You've got to wait a few weeks for that. We're doing evidentialists next week. But I want to make sure everyone has the two... If you wanted to think of it in this way, the two points, the arguing for theism in arguing specifically for the evidences of particularly, not just the Bible as a whole, but really for the life of Christ, although you would be taught. I know many of you, and if you're not a fan of apologetics, I know you're a fan of telling people about Jesus, and you're able to go to the Old Testament and go, look, this is God, this is the one who did this, and mankind has fallen, and this is what everything that happened since that time. God made a way for one, and that one, and you see it all through the Old Testament, and then Jesus comes, and he's the one. And then this is what his life, and we know that his life happened in this manner from the New Testament, from Jewish testimony, from Roman testimony, and we see what happened, and the growth, and all these things, That's what I want you to understand the important aspect. Like being able to talk to someone about the theistic truth, and then bringing that truth to not just a probability that a God is in charge, but that there's one God whom we worship. That's why I was saying last week, apologetics is innately tied to evangelism. It's also innately tied to making sure that bad Teaching or or the the unbeliever. I'm sorry the believer who is new to the faith who is fragile maybe in holding on to Assurance or something like that like a lot today how many different arguments are there out there by atheists other religions? Secularist whatever it may be that are attempting to constantly break down the message of the gospel That's infinite And so having a good argument for the faith is also something that is assuring to a new believer who might be struggling with assurance of what they're holding to. Next week we'll be talking about evidentialism, which is both the easiest one to talk about and the most branched off in terms of authorship. Any questions? We're running over, but we'll go with you. So are there any questions on tonight that no one got a chance? No statements about why this method's not as good as presuppositional or something or anything like that. Just on the method itself. If you want to really see a master class in it with, as I was saying, some of his own nuance, again, mere Christianity is worth the reread. You can also, your presentation was William and Fred versus Christopher Hitchens. Of course, there's a ton of language, right, versus X, Y, Z. Yeah, so anything Hitch is involved in, their language. He's a fan of Hitchens? No? No, he didn't do that. I don't know, he was pretty, well, he was sarcastic. Maybe I'm thinking of someone else. Yeah. He was one of the four horsemen, he was a journalist. He's the one that died of throat cancer? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do know him. That's the guy that I was talking about with Doug Wilson. Yeah. Okay. I must have been wrong. So what was the name of the book you said from R.C. Sproul's that he wrote? Classical Apologetics? Is that it? That's the title. I didn't see that title. I've got it. The one with John Geisler or Gerstner is what comes up when you have to search classical poetry. Yeah, it's both. They did it together. Oh, it's the same book? Mm-hmm. OK. There's always Gerstner's student. Right. It all makes sense. It's coming together. Don't read what he wrote about presuppositionalism. He's totally into it. Well, no. No, don't. Read it. And then read Greg Bondstein's response. Yeah. Read things that are hard to read that you don't agree with. It sharpens you. Oh, come on. So read Geisler. Don't read Geisler, though. But read Stroll and read his reasons why he doesn't like presuppositions and doesn't think it's reformed. And then read Bonson's response, or pull up the manuscript of their debate, because I don't think it's on audio anymore, because they debated it before Bonson died. And then read Fresco. His book on apologetics, Reform Apologetics, is good. What's his name? This came out with the book. Bode Bauckham's expository apologetics is fairly good, if you like Bode. There's a lot out there. Read it. Like I said, I view these as tools. I may believe one method stronger than the other, but if I sit down with someone and they're just like, I want to talk about if there's a God, I'm going down the road with them. you know, just to see where it takes them. I might not do the switch to, I might do something else. But if it's there, you have a tool in your toolkit, to where God's giving you an avenue to talk to someone, use it. So you can't ask somebody, hey, I'm really comfortable with the presuppositional method, can we go that way? Because I really feel like this conversation... And then the heavens open up and... Yeah. The scroll box and debate is on YouTube. Is it really? Yeah. Just Google scroll box and debate. It's fantastic, but... Everything's on YouTube. It's two hours and two parts. But the responsible watcher should read Sproul's book first. so you understand his argument, because he loses badly. Who does? Sproul. He was not prepared. No, he was prepared, but he wasn't prepared for Bonson. Bonson was... I've never seen anybody prepared for Bonson. He was a man, no one's ever heard of him. So people have heard of Cornelius Van Til. Well, Bonson at the time, I know it's happened again, at the time, he... was getting two master's degrees at seminary at the same time that no one had ever done before simultaneously. And he was Van Til's student. Van Til had a lot of students that went on. Francis Schaefer was one of them, John Frank. But Bonson was singular in his kind of adoration of Van Til. Would that be accurate in his continuing his presuppositional apologetics? And so when, and he was also, animalistic in the way that he tried to engage atheists, philosophers, non-Christian thinkers in academia. That was where he went. He wanted to face them. Because he knew that in college was where all these ideas were happening. And it was going to spill down into the rest of society and the church. And so he'd go after whoever the biggest brains were in any area. And he'd want to debate them. And then Sproul wrote this book, and so Bonson did a Bonson, and it was just like, let's have a debate. And Sproul is Sproul, and he's like, bring it on. But then Sproul just wasn't prepared for, I think, how, what's the right word to describe Bonson? Cantankerous. Yes. He was angry that Sproul was wasting his time arguing a fellow Christian over this, and kind of raking Van Til over the coals. And so he was angry or upset that he even had to waste his time. He could have been out debating these other guys. And he died untimely. He was in his early 50s, died suddenly. All his books that we have were found as full manuscripts after he passed away. Super brilliant guy. You know Sam Herrick? I think Sam knew him. Oh, wow. Yeah. All of his manuscripts and all of his work, the recordings, and everything that he's done has been given to Apollo Geostudio. And they're, right now, remastering them. And they're slowly letting them out. Oh, was that the Bonson Project? Yeah. Oh, I didn't hear about that. It was given to him by his son. All of that, the whole entire. He was a neat guy, but so was his teacher. I haven't looked in a long time. I have some of his books, but that's it. There's a book called Inerrancy that's edited by Norm Geisler, and Bonson has a section in there that's absolutely incredible on inerrancy. So that's in the library. Anyway, we went over. If you have further questions or want to continue to talk, that's fine. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this night. We thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that we would all have hearts to confront unbelief in those around us as you bring them to us. May we do it with gentleness and respect. May we live lives that reflect a belief of the hope that is in us through Christ. May we ever look to him as our example. Lord, may now you be with everyone for the rest of the week and empower us through the Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray you surprise us by opportunities to share our faith and to help lift each other up. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.