About this sermon
A Morning Instruction class on apologetics: what exists and how we know it. Philosophers have doubted whether we can know anything beyond our sensations, and Eastern religions call the world illusion. Liberation theologies reinterpret Christianity from the standpoint of the oppressed. Christians answer that all things visible and invisible exist because God made them, and we know because God has spoken in creation, which leaves all people without excuse, and in Scripture, which is necessary, sufficient, authoritative, and clear.
Sermon transcript
Okay, let’s read Romans 19, one through four. Why don’t I just, for expediency’s sake, I’ll just read these four verses. This is from the Bible that is in the pew. The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of his hands. Day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, nor are there words. Their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth and their utterances to the end of the world. In them he has placed a tent for the sun.
Psalm 119, or 19, one through four. And then let’s turn now to Romans 119, where we’ll read 119 and 20. Because that which is known about God is evident within them, that is, all people. for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
Okay. We’ll set that aside for a moment. let us talk about, really briefly, about what we’ve gone over in past weeks. Past weeks, we talked about the blockhouse method. That’s the usual way of defending the faith. Build a foundation, build upon that foundation, build upon that foundation. It’s the blockhouse method of defending the faith.
We almost want to say that if you’re a reformed Christian and you’re not a presuppositionalist, which a presuppositionalist is the type of apologetics that we’re studying, the person who is a practitioner of what we’re studying, then he actually has an extra block, okay? Because he’s got to prove that there is a God. Then he’s gonna want to prove that the Christian God is true. with all the arguments that he might use, then he’s gonna wanna prove that the reformed understanding of the faith is right, right? I mean, so it’s just being reformed and not a presupposition, it just adds an extra step. method, which I think is just a trap. It’s very difficult to defend that. It’s a long, long process. Not that we’re opposed to investing a lot of time in people, but I think it’s unfaithful to the scriptures.
Now last week, we talked about what? We talked about unity and diversity. We talked about the non-Christian, we broke down non-Christian worldviews, and I know it’s a bit technical, and I just wanna refresh your minds really quickly. Okay, to predicate is to speak of something, right? Why is it that in a non-Christian worldview, Given his assumptions, it’s impossible for him to predicate, to speak of anything. Does anyone remember? Does anyone remember we talked about two things? We talked about monism, and we talked about atomism. Does everybody remember that? Everybody who was here? OK.
Really briefly, to speak of something means that you have to have an ordered worldview. You have to have a worldview in which it makes sense to even speak of anything at all. And in a world in which, for example, a Buddhist worldview where all is illusion, all these things, the particulars of existence, the things that we say are illusion, it makes no sense to speak of anything, right? in a worldview in which all is in flux, a worldview in which you can’t step into the same river twice because all things are changing, you can’t honestly speak of anything there, okay? Now I think, I know that was a bit heady, just wanted to remind you all of that as we continue to break down non-Christian worldviews, and we look at the Christian worldview.
Okay? We, we, yes. Go ahead. Someone who’s saying we’re all one with nature. They’d be among us. Yes. Yes. Especially in extreme form. I mean, you might want to push. In what way are you one with, with the earth? I mean, There are people who so want to be one with the earth, I knew a Buddhist, who longed for the day when he would be the, as unto the ideal creature, which was a tree, okay? Wouldn’t it be great if I were like a tree? A tree doesn’t know it’s a tree, okay? because it doesn’t have ability to say, you know, that’s not bad, right? That’s the ideal existence if you don’t want to feel pain.
Okay, so yeah, you might push that person to that. You’re really, your worldview is irrational because you’re hoping that all will be one in such a way that we’ll just all, all that we will end up being eventually is like a drop in the water that enters into the ocean. That’s gonna be, the end all be all of our existence. Won’t that be wonderful? Yeah, well then you lose, well then you don’t, you’re not just one drop anymore, you become part of the one.
You can’t predicate, you can’t speak of anything without the Christian worldview. Predication happens, therefore the Christian God exists, okay? That’s how you, we may come back to that, but we, not today. What we want to push is that every non-Christian worldview can’t make sense of the unity of the world and the diversity of the world. the Christian worldview does.
Because we begin with biblical wisdom. And biblical wisdom is to begin with God. And God is, in his eternal essence and eternity past and eternity future, but also in the way that he reveals himself, he is unity and diversity brought together because he is one in three. Okay? That’s why we must begin with God, and not try to build blocks. That’s why we must begin with a Christian God and not just any old God, some deity whosoever. So we want to say that every non-Christian worldview is absurd.
And we can say that at the outset if we’re able to back it up. Now we want to talk about Continuing on, theory of knowledge. This is epistemology, which is just theory of knowledge. How we know what we know, the nature of what we know. Non-Christians have different theories of knowledge. So do Christians. Okay? We’re going to go through some non-Christian theories of knowledge. How we know what we know, and what is Knowledge. Okay, first, consensus. There are non-Christians who believe that what can be known is just a consensus of society.
Okay? So one society might make certain truths true because the majority think that. And another society might make it different. This is a relativistic understanding of truth, right? Go ahead. Yes, this is truth democratized. That’s exactly it, right?
You might hear some people say, OK, some Asian cultures do this foot They take their feet, and they manipulate them in such a way that they essentially can’t walk. And there are people who will say, well, we can’t judge that. That’s their culture, and that’s what they’ve decided. We can’t say anything about that. Well, the person is assuming a consensus understanding of truth and morality at that point. And they’re saying, we can’t judge that. Because they have different standards and we have different standards. As if there’s not a universal standard of how we should treat people. This does not assume that there’s a universal standard. It’s just what a society comes up with.
This is one view of truth. If you’re not familiar with this, just know many kids in college, they’re getting this kinds of thing. Okay, constructivist. Constructivist view of truth, okay? This is Marxism. What it says is that truth is something that the rich people have invented, and they have the elites, and they have imposed it upon the rest of people, the little people. In Marxism, there are two types of people. There are the bourgeois. I thought I did until just now. So, okay, there are the bourgeois. Okay. They’re the elite. They’re the 1%.
I mean, they’re the ones who have everything and they control the books, the schools, everything, and they’re just raining down truth that they made up that keeps them in power. upon the proletariat. I know how to spell proletariat, but I’ll just, for sake of consistency, we’ve got the little people, okay? The proletariat, they’re just the little nobodies who are just being abused by these big people at the top, the rich people, okay?
This is getting more and more common, this understanding of what truth is. Now, this, constructivist view of truth works its way into theology. It’s working its way into Bible departments. Well, it’s already in a lot of Bible departments, but guess how it comes about. The way that it comes about in constructivist, in Marxism works its way into theology is this.
Who are the big people at the top in theology, the ones who, the mean, nasty people. It’s a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant for the most part. Men, it’s dead white men. They’re the ones who have set the rules. for what’s right and what’s wrong. They put together the catechisms and the creeds and everything like that, and dead white men have been oppressing the non-Christ, oppressing not just non-Christians, but even Christians, because basically, dead white men have set the stage, set the rules, and they’ll persecute you if you get wrong.
Okay? So where does this come out? Three major groups of what’s called liberation theology. And the liberation theology are the little people, and they’re saying, we haven’t had a seat at the table. We want a seat at the table, so we’re gonna take it from these guys, and who are the oppressed in their mind?
That’s one. Women. Any others? Yes? Especially black. There’s some South American, especially Catholic, the liberation theology there. And there’s one other group. Marietta knows it, but I want to see if anyone else knows it before I ask her. Anyone? Marianne? Gay theology? Okay. Gay theology.
Now, I’m not promoting this because I think that this is good. Remember, we’re looking at non-Christian views of truth and non-Christian theology, right? What they’re gonna say is, men have been oppressing women. with their theology, and so we women are going to invent womenist theology, and they prize certain women, Deborah, Rahab, and they, now understand, these people don’t believe that the Bible’s inspired or inerrant, but, go ahead. I’m sorry, I’ll disagree with you.
Go ahead. There are Christians today who will sign on Yes. He believed in inerrancy. Inerrancy. All reformed. Relativism according to the scriptures. Cultural. Cultural relativism? Right. Cultural. So therefore, what Paul had to say in his letters wasn’t relative because that was a culturally bound statement. Sure. It doesn’t sound like someone who believes in inspiration and the authority of scripture. Well, there’s this great argument about whether he did or not. I’m sure. I’m sure. Obviously, we’ve got to generalize here. Right. But for the most part, we’re— You’re right. There will always be exceptions, but the exceptions don’t disprove the rule. They prove the rule. But there are always exceptions. But anyway, there are these who are oppressed, and they’re saying, you guys have imposed the truth on us. We’ll make up our own truth according to our own. And it comes along. the lines of minorities as well.
This is Reverend Wright, the president’s former pastor, and there are those who say… being gay is not wrong and they’ll make changes to certain passages. They’ll say that in Sodom and Gomorrah, the problem was hospitality, it was not homosexuality. I mean, they make changes like, so you have imposed all these things upon us and made us think this and we’re going to be liberated out of it. Did you have a question or comment? Yes, to piggyback on what you’re saying, we’re never staying in one place.
And this is the case of non-Christians as well. I mean, they may have grown up in an orthodox Christian worldview, and they’re just kind of moving this way. And you might have had them when when they were still working things out. I mean, some of us are becoming more conformed to the Bible, and some people are becoming less conformed to the Bible. We’re all moving. I mean, don’t ever think that you’re just, this is where I am, I’m a state here. There you go. There you go. for the non-Christian? That’s an aesthetic question. Do you see what’s wrong with them all?
All right, you can’t, just making up truth as a social convention, no, or the people at the top, the bourgeois type people have imposed truth upon us and made the rules, well, that just doesn’t work out in its, practically. There’s also the pragmatic view of truth, which basically just comes down to, if it works, then it’s true. That’s simplifying things a lot. But if it works, then it’s true. That’s really what they’re going to be saying. Now, what is the only philosophy that’s been invented in America? pragmatism. It’s the only one. It seems very American, doesn’t it? If it works, do it. If it works, it must be true. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right? Okay. Next one. Coherence. Non-Christian coherence, okay? This is the next candidate for normal Christian theory of truth. That is to say that truth is the truth that coheres with all the rest of the facts, okay? This is a bit more abstract, all right?
The advantage of this one, not that we’re going to endorse it, but the advantage of this one is that it at least takes into account that facts don’t just drop out of thin air or out of the sky. There’s a web of understanding and of belief where this part of a person’s worldview comports with this part of a person’s worldview. The whole thing coheres, okay? These people would be looking at the facts, as many facts as they can, and seeking not to find a contradiction in those. If they find one, they’ll change their worldview based on that. We won’t spend a whole lot of time on that just because it’s a bit complex, and we’re gonna go to an easier one.
Yes, that’s absolutely right. I guess some people are conditioned to think constantly in those kinds of ways and what you’re talking about. A lawyer, a doctor, certainly does. Some people are, some people, they’re just like, what are you talking about? But if that makes perfect sense to you, coherence, good. Okay, for some, it’s just a little bit more abstract than they’re used to. Okay, coherence, last one. What’s that? Too many C’s. Correspondence. Is that? I’m scared with my inability to spell bourgeoisie today. Are we all right there? What’s that? OK. Correspondence. All right.
This is an I. And this is going to represent your sense experience. Your five senses, not limited to the eye, but certainly the eye. And then this is the world out there. The world out there has numbers and objects and things. It’s got colors. rainbow, it has colors, there’s all this stuff out there.
There’s what goes on in my mind, which is the sensations that I’m having. I’m having a sensation of brown wood. I’m having a sensation of hardness. All these sensations, They come together in our mind, it’s like the world is imposing itself on us. Or is it? The question is, we have the sensations here, but there’s this veil of perception, okay? The veil of perception is What happens here? We think, and a non-Christian thinks, that he’s experiencing color, and numbers, and objects, and shapes.
But the thing is, he doesn’t have any basis for thinking that what the sensations that happen in his mind correspond to what’s going on out there. Now, he thinks that it does. It’s his most basic assumption that it does. But a philosopher of epistemology, theory of knowledge, they’ll be pretty frank with you that those people who believe that my sense experience that I have of the objects that are out there, if they’re even out there, I have no basis for knowing what is going on out there beyond the veil of perception.
Now, some people might say, what are you talking about? There’s a table here. And the answer is, no, you’re having a sensation of a table. But just because you’re having a sensation of a table doesn’t mean an ancient philosopher who dreams that he’s a butterfly.
This is an Eastern philosopher, dreams that he’s a butterfly. And then he goes to teach a class the next day. And he says, is it the case that I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly? Or is it the case that I am a butterfly dreaming that I’m a man? teaching a class. They’re both sense perceptions that someone has. The best example of this, it came out last week. I don’t endorse any movie. I don’t talk about movies. I don’t watch many movies. That’s part of it. But some people have seen The Matrix. Right?
What happens in the matrix? It’s a whole world where they have all the sense experiences of eating steak, just everything that happens, they have the sense experiences. But what happens is they find out that there’s something, that it’s all in their mind for reasons that we won’t give away, okay? The non-Christian philosopher, Some will say, well, my experiences, my impressions correspond to the things out there. So I’m having a sense of impression of a number, and there’s numbers out there, or there’s color out there, or there are shapes out there. But we wanna just drive the divide between them. And say, on what basis do you think the things that you’re getting sense impressions of really are out there? You have no basis for it.
There’s another movie, I haven’t seen it, called The Truman Show, but it came up all the time in certain classes that I took. Not as much as The Matrix, but It’s a guy, it’s about a man who was living a life that he thought was real, but in fact, he’s really just on TV all day. He’s living in this minor world that he’s basically a science experiment, right? Again, examples of the ways that your sense experience that you have, don’t necessarily correspond to what’s going out there.
These are all the non-Christian views of truth. Construction, consensus, pragmatic, coherence, correspondence, they all fall short. They all fall flat. Philosophers will break down each one of these, and it gets very complex. I’m trying to simplify them as best as I can, but honestly, with someone who believes in correspondence, we just push them into the matrix. How do you know you’re not in the matrix? Can Neo, who’s in the matrix, prove that he’s not in? His sense experiences are exactly the same, okay?
So, I took you through that just because I wanted to give you a basic introduction to non-Christian theory of knowledge, so that we can introduce a Christian theory of knowledge. How do we, as believers in Christ, know what we know? Well, first we’re gonna talk about really quickly, metaphysics. So a word that’s very, very difficult to define, but we know what physics are, and we know what physical things are, okay? Physical things are all these things right here. If something is metaphysics, to break that down in Greek, that is that which is with or after physics. So we have the physical world, But there are things that are going on with physics, with the physical world, and that is the unseen.
The Bible tells us that God created the unseen and the seen, right? Jesus Christ created all things visible and invisible. So what exists? Apostles create all things, visible and invisible. All these things exist because God created them and they exist, things exist that go beyond our perception, that picture that we have. What things exist? God, God who is one in three, God who created all things. We wanna talk about man who fell into sin. a God who promised a Redeemer, angels, demons, Christ who died, Christ who sends the Spirit.
Our worldview accounts for many things, the things we see and the things we don’t see. The things we see, we’re trusting our God for. The things that we don’t see, we’re trusting Him because He told us so. That’s very important for us, for the presuppositional apologist.
God told me so. A simple, childlike faith. You see, we’ve got all these theories of truth, non-Christian theories of truth, and they can get very complex. Like I said, I tried to simplify them, but we’re talking about a simple, childlike Sunday school faith. that we all are to have. God told me so. Okay, how does God tell us? How does God tell us? Okay.
Back to, how do we know? Back to epistemology, back to theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know? of revealing God. There are two types of revelation, are there not? There’s special and there’s general. We’re gonna get to general in just a moment. But special revelation, it has four attributes. Who knows what the attributes of special revelation are? attributes of Scripture, we can say. Necessary, sufficient, authoritative, God’s special revelation in the Bible, we want to say, is necessary, sufficient, authoritative, and clear.
OK? In what way is it necessary? Could we have Christianity without the Bible? No. Correct why? or sin. I mean, we have what’s written on our heart about the fact that we sin and we hopefully have conscience, but we don’t have something. Yeah, you’re right. What would we read from? What would we sing from or model our songs that we sing after? I mean, what would we, how would we model our, we, Christianity cannot survive without the Bible.
It’s necessary. Is the Bible necessary for a Catholic? No, it’s not necessary. If all the Bibles got burned up, the Catholic Church would be able to continue because they have the tradition. The attributes of Scripture is the Bible’s necessary. We need it. We can’t have Christianity without it. I mean, the Mormon Church, if all the books of Mormon and Bibles were burned up, they could survive.
They have a prophet, and they’ll tell you so. They think so. Go ahead. With Catholicism, though, much of their tradition is based upon Scripture. Sure. I would argue about the Catholic Church. I understand what you’re saying about the Mormon Church, but I don’t agree with you about the Catholic Church. I know that it’s built on that foundation.
Do you think that if all the Bibles burned up, they would just close their doors? I don’t think they would. I think we’d have to. Without the Bible, we’d have nothing. I think they’d be able to continue. I don’t. OK. I’ve been to enough Catholic services where there’s been enough scripture preached that if you burn that aspect of it, they wouldn’t be able to go on. Certainly. They used it. They practiced with it, but don’t they You don’t think they would be able to make some changes?
No, I don’t. OK. OK. Maybe we’ll have that. But the law system is different throughout the country. It certainly is. Sure. Around the world, too, but definitely just even in our country. OK. We can come back to that. We can discuss that. Another attribute of scripture, it is sufficient. OK? It is what we need, and we can say that it is all we need. Right? What is our first answer when our brothers, who mean the best, many of them, meaning, having the best intentions, when they say, I spoke in tongues, or I had a prophetic dream? We would say, well, you’re undermining the sufficiency of scripture. We have the Bible. That’s all we need. We don’t need anything past it. You’re adding to it. Right? The Westminster Confession says this.
We would say, When our brothers and sisters, who I think often mean well, say, I had a prophetic dream, or I spoke in tongues, then what should we do? We say, OK, well, what did God tell you? And if it corresponds to what’s found in the Bible, then what do we say?
Oh, we didn’t need your revelation. It’s already there. If they say, well, they tell you what it said, what their revelation was, and it’s outside. It’s something different from the Bible. We say, well, that’s just not in the Bible. And the Bible’s sufficient. We have all that we need. So either way, your prophetic dream, it just doesn’t pan out. It’s not necessary. It’s either extra biblical or we didn’t need it because it just backs up what’s already in here. So thank you very much. OK, it’s authoritative. It speaks with authority. When we read the Bible, it speaks with God’s authority. It is as if God is speaking because He is speaking.
John Calvin says in his 2 Timothy 3.16 commentary on 2 Timothy 3.16 that we should revere the Bible as if God is right there. We should have the same reverence for the Bible as we should for God, okay?
And then it is clear. Our confession says that this, all these things are in Westminster Confession 1. All these, broken down. Necessary, sufficient, authoritative, and clear. It is clear. You ask sometimes, 316, and you might say, well, look who’s talking.
Peter has some difficult things to say as well that are hard to understand, right? I mean, maybe in some ways, Paul seems more understandable maybe to us in our culture, but it’s clear. What are we supposed to do when we have a passage that doesn’t make sense to us? Do we go to the poem? Yes, we go looking through the rest of the Bible, yeah. All of the Bible is like spotlights, and if this passage is darkness to us, we get other ones that speak more clearly upon these things. So we have it, it’s perspicuous, it’s clear, it speaks in such a way that we’re able to understand, and if we don’t, then it’s a further part of the process of learning and of knowing God.
Okay, we are at the time limit, and I was just about to go for the, punchline, not that it’s a joke, but the meat of it. So I’m going to leave this like this for next week because this is important for us to understand. Let me just sum it up. What exists? All things visible and invisible. How do we know God told me so? In His revelation, in His special revelation, which is necessary for the Christian Church, sufficient, authoritative, and it is clear. We need the Bible in all things, even in defending the faith, especially in defending the faith.
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