Only Your face will lead me to reason.
In the “I think I have sorted this out” department:
I went through a Sunday School class not that long ago on apologetics. Being that we are attending a Regular Baptist church our church approached the subject through a Reformed perspective that included the presentation of presuppositional apologetics. Rather than pretending that man is neutral in his stance with God and that he approaches all subjects without bias, this approach assesses man for what he is – in active rebellion against God suppressing the truth. Thus, his rationality has fallen, his application of the scientific method has fallen and he is suspect in all that he says and does.
One of the issues I had with the very end of the class is the treatment of individuals who have adopted a particular belief system that is not Christianity. According to the presuppositional approach, we would engage these individuals on a comparison/exploration of their beliefs with the beliefs that we have. I thought this was bogus. Why would we treat them any differently than the person who is an ardent atheist or rails against the acquisition of true, unadulterated, knowledge as the agnostic does? Aren’t they still in active rebellion against God?
Then it dawned on me. Our main contention with the rational man who is naturalistic in his thinking is the fact that we believe that revelation is a method by which knowledge of the universe is imparted to us. This revelation is superior to rationality, scientific inquiry, or even sense perception as all of these faculties have been tainted by the fall and are used to rebel against God. The man or woman with a particular belief system that is, what is traditionally called religious, had no issue with the role of revelation in the acquisition of knowledge. Thus, it would be pointless to engage them at the same level as the atheist or agnostic. It is a different ball game altogether.
Hey, what can I say? It just took me a little while longer than the rest of the class. That’s all.
I went through a Sunday School class not that long ago on apologetics. Being that we are attending a Regular Baptist church our church approached the subject through a Reformed perspective that included the presentation of presuppositional apologetics. Rather than pretending that man is neutral in his stance with God and that he approaches all subjects without bias, this approach assesses man for what he is – in active rebellion against God suppressing the truth. Thus, his rationality has fallen, his application of the scientific method has fallen and he is suspect in all that he says and does.
One of the issues I had with the very end of the class is the treatment of individuals who have adopted a particular belief system that is not Christianity. According to the presuppositional approach, we would engage these individuals on a comparison/exploration of their beliefs with the beliefs that we have. I thought this was bogus. Why would we treat them any differently than the person who is an ardent atheist or rails against the acquisition of true, unadulterated, knowledge as the agnostic does? Aren’t they still in active rebellion against God?
Then it dawned on me. Our main contention with the rational man who is naturalistic in his thinking is the fact that we believe that revelation is a method by which knowledge of the universe is imparted to us. This revelation is superior to rationality, scientific inquiry, or even sense perception as all of these faculties have been tainted by the fall and are used to rebel against God. The man or woman with a particular belief system that is, what is traditionally called religious, had no issue with the role of revelation in the acquisition of knowledge. Thus, it would be pointless to engage them at the same level as the atheist or agnostic. It is a different ball game altogether.
Hey, what can I say? It just took me a little while longer than the rest of the class. That’s all.
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