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September 9 - October 6, 2018
I am not simply seeking to defend the Christian worldview from outside criticism, but to provide an offensive attack on all forms of unbelief.
It is not sufficient for an atheist or any other skeptic to simply attack the walls of the Christian worldview. They must also defend their own ground. They must protect their own presuppositions and belief systems.
the mind is not a passive wax tablet that is waiting to be molded and shaped by experience, but rather the mind is an active organ that coordinates and constructs the chaotic sensations (that are gathered by sense experiences from the external world) into ideas.
The mind supplies order to the world. In other words, the laws of nature are not in nature but are supplied by the mind.
We can only know, according to Kant, the things as they appear to us, not as they are “things-in-themselves.”
Kant, oddly enough, remained religious, for he claimed that he found it necessary to deny the knowledge of God in order to make room for faith in God.
Kierkegaard devised a solution that could “leap” believers over Kant’s transcendental wall. [2.9] His solution was not to defend the objective certainty of the historicity of the Christian faith, but to stress the inwardness of a passionate faith.
Kierkegaard defined truth as an “objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness.”[2.15]
According to Kierkegaard, objectivity destroys faith.[2.17] But this is why faith is needed. By passionate faith, believers can “leap” over the wall of rational doubt and firmly take hold of apparent absurdities.
For Bultmann, the story of the resurrection is not a historical fact as much as it is a symbolic story that captures the new life and hope believers have in Christ. He promotes that it is existential faith in the message of the gospel (not belief in the historicity of the gospel) that saves believers from a life of hopelessness and despair.
In other words, the term God does not speak of some external reality, but rather symbolizes that which internally controls us subjectively.
Atheism, nevertheless, is the logical conclusion of existentialism. If there is no objective and external reality for belief to attach itself to, then there ceases to be any concrete warrant for belief.
In all this, we see the various attempts to separate faith from reality.
faith and reason are not at war with each other; faith in Christ Jesus is not detached from the logical truth claims of the Bible. Rather, it is rooted in these objective and historical certainties.
Faith is the only reasonable response to the truth.
The grounds of belief is not fallible reason but God’s infallible Word.
Francis Turretin (1623-1687) explained, though reason is not the “principle upon which faith rests,” it is “the instrument of faith.”[3.8]
a personal God creating everything out of nothing is the only logical and self-consistent explanation of the origins of the universe.
I have proven myself fallible. Since it’s common for me to have errors in judgment, why then would I trust my own judgment over and above the judgment of God? If God has proven Himself to be God, it is absurd for me not to trust Him.
It is self-verifying that every man-made philosophy has its origin in fallible and finite men.
All truth, if worked out to its logical end, leads to the God of the Bible.
My emotions, my pride, and my inverted values hindered my judgment. I was not objective or rational because I did not want to be objective or rational.
We are not merely irrational every now and then. Without God, we live in a state of irrationality.
only by presupposing the God of the Bible is ultimate truth possible.
Postmodern thinkers question 2 + 2 = 4. This is because without presupposing the God of the Bible, there is no basis for universal or absolute truth.
Because God is ultimate, rather than seeking to justify knowledge based merely on human reason or human experiences, we must have knowledge of God to justify knowledge of everything else.
as British historian Malcolm Muggeridge famously said: “People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to.”
It is not that we are incapable of understanding the truth; without the grace of God, we simply do not appreciate it.
People have an opinion on almost everything, especially on those things that relate to and affect their personal lives.
This scale is our value system. The things we appreciate and love form our values, and this value system determines our morals and ethical behavior.
It is a false but common notion to think that we are not responsible for our emotions. We often speak as if our emotions are alien creatures that attack us from the outside, as if they are outside of our control.
It is not that our emotions are controlled by the uncontrolled changes in our environment, but rather it is our pre-established values that control how we emotionally respond to the uncontrolled changes in our circumstances. This means our ever-changing circumstances expose our true nature and our personal values.
Our emotions are a reflection of our values and of our nature.
A lack of faith does not come from a lack of rational and credible evidence, it comes from a fallen heart that is enslaved to its own selfish desires.
The only thing that can produce faith in Christ is a heart transplant. Sinners must be born again. They must have the love of God poured into their dead hearts before they will willingly repent of their sins and run to Christ Jesus for forgiveness.
By saying, “That’s not fair,” we are not merely saying that the offense we are complaining about does not please me. We are saying that the offense is contrary to the universal rule of fair play. We are saying that the other person is wrong because he knows better.
When people are confronted with violating the standard of fair play, most often, Lewis says, they do not argue against the standard. They don’t typically say, “Who says I can’t be selfish and exploit others for my own personal benefit?”
it is nonsensical to think we only believe ideas that can be proven true. If everything had to be proven through reason or experience, then nothing could be proven. If evidence were needed for every proposition that we believed, then we would need to believe infinitely more propositions. Even if we had enough time to answer an infinite regression [5.5] of questions, we would be forced to admit that our inability to find any ultimate truth leaves us without warrant for any of our beliefs.
An axiom is a premise or starting point that is taken for granted before acquiring any additional knowledge. Axioms are self-evident beliefs that anchor the rest our beliefs.
Calvin unapologetically stated: “There is within the human mind and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity.”[
our guilty consciences, which stem from our knowledge of the laws of logic and morality, presuppose God.
The converse is true as well. Our knowledge of God presupposes the laws of morality and logic.[5.17] We cannot have knowledge of the laws of morality and logic without having the knowledge of God.[
As any piece of art or engineering marvel reveals the wisdom and creativity of the artist or engineer, creation reveals the wisdom and power of God.
Because man is made in the image of God (known as the Imago Dei) he is not identical with God, but he is also not entirely different. This analogous relationship between God and man is what makes man capable of receiving and understanding divine revelation (Gen. 1:26).
Because man cannot help but know himself, he cannot help but immediately know God.
it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating Him to scrutinize himself.[
Van Til would say: “For man, self-consciousness presupposes God-consciousness.”[
Being created in the image of God furnishes us with a rational mind and an ethical standard that ensures knowledge of God, of the world around us, and of ourselves.[6.20]
The universe, according to Calvin, is “a mirror in which we are to behold God.”[6.22] Calvin said, “men cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him.”
we cannot know anything about God without knowing something about the world at the same time…We cannot know the world without knowing God.”[6.26]
