Crucial Aspects of Presuppositionalism

Here are three crucial aspects of presuppositionalism I found while reading Bahnsen’s Always Ready.  These are important to think about when engaging a different worldview which opposes Christianity.  (What is presuppositional apologetics?…click here.)

Three Crucial Aspects of Presuppositionalism

1.      Men come to presuppose the truth of God only by the grace of God.

a.      Because it is the truth and grace of God which has transformed us, we must be bold in our challenge to intellectual belief.

b.      Since it is the grace of God (not our own wisdom) which accounts for our change of mind, humility is befitting the Christian scholar; we must have nothing in ourselves of which to boast.

c.       THEREFORE, IT MUST BE HUMBLE BOLDNESS – Not compromise, not obscurantism, not arrogance – which characterizes our scholarship

2.      All men are “without excuse” for rebellion against the Lord, for all men know the living and true God by means of his common revelation.

a.       Despite his contrary profession, even the unbeliever knows what may be known about God from nature and conscience; God has clearly revealed Himself to every man.

b.      All men attempt to suppress this knowledge of God, as is manifest in the various, multiform, and profuse schemes of anti-Christian thought and philosophy.

c.       But because the unbeliever cannot rid himself of a knowledge of God, because he continues to use the “borrowed capital” of theistic truths, he is enabled to come to a limited understanding of the truth about the world and himself – despite, not because of, his attempted autonomy.

3.      God has created all things for Himself, directs them to His own sovereign ends, and owns everything – in which case, everything is the created realm must serve Him.

a.      This precludes the possibility of an neutral ground between the believer and unbeliever, but it assures us that there is abundant common ground (metaphysically speaking) between them, since all men are God’s creatures and live in God’s world.

b.      As God’s creature, created in God’s image, and living in an environment which constantly brings the revelation of God to bear upon him, the unbeliever is always accessible to the gospel.  The believer always has a point of contact with the unbeliever: (1) his being the image of God, and (2) the suppressed truth deep inside him.