Sinner's Prayer Evangelism

The Imputation of Adam's Sin at Parchment and Pen

C Michael Patton wrote a post defending the federal view of the imputation of Adam's sin and made the point that the palatability of a doctrine should not determine its veracity.

"The Knowledge of God" Series

Here are the links to "The Knowledge of God" series posts:

Scriptural Derivation

Introduction: The Necessity of Theology and Apologetics (1 Peter 3:8-17, “A Ready Defense”)
Part A (Intro.)
Part B (1 Peter 3:8-17)

The Doctrine of God
Part A (Unity, Eternality, and Aseity of God)
Part B (Incomprehensibility, Immutability, and Holiness)
Part C (Creator and Sustainer, Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence)
Part D (The Lord of History, Incomparability, and the Personal Nature)

Creation and Man
Part A (Genesis 1:1-2:3)
Part B (The Enuma Elish, Genesis 2:4-25, and Genesis 3:1-24)
Part C (Genesis 4-10, and Genesis 11:1-9)
Part D (Christ: The Assault and Triumph Over the Continuity of Being)

The Irrationality of Sin (Romans 1:18-32, “The Exchange”)

The Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, "The Wisdom of the Wise")
Part A (1 Corinthians 1:18-31)
Part B (1 Corinthians 2:1-16 and Excursus on Various Other Passages)

Pressing the Antithesis (Acts 17:22-34, “The Covenant Lawsuit”)

Philosophical Application

Overcoming the Anti-Metaphysical Bias

A Refutation of Scientific Realism

The Transcendental Argument for God, Part I (God’s Existence)
Part A (Materialism)
Part B (Dualistic Atheism, Vitalistic Atheism, Pan-psychism, Polytheism, Dualism, Monistic Pantheism, Dualistic Pantheism, and Panentheism)
Part C (Platonism, Aristotelianism, Post-Modernism, A Possible Objection, Conclusion, and Appendix: The Problem of Universals)

The Transcendental Argument for God, Part II (The Necessity of Special Revelation)
Part A (Rationalism, Empiricism, Kantianism, and Modern Idealism)
Part B (Logical Positivism, Probability Theory, Conclusion, and Appendix: Which Revelatory Theism?)

The Knowledge of God, The Necessity of Special Revelation, Part B

Logical Positivism

Logical Positivism was an extremely empirical philosophy and probably the most anti-religious knowledge theory that ever was. It was started by a group of philosophers that became known as the “Vienna Circle” and was propounded greatly by the Oxford philosopher, Alfred J. Ayer. Greg Bahnsen explains:

“Ayer maintained that any genuinely meaningful and factual statement must pass the “verifiability criterion” (which he could never successfully formulate) – to the effect that any meaningful statement is in theory verifiable by observation, either directly or indirectly (by observation of what can be deduced from it along with other “legitimate” statements). The philosopher does not have available to him any truths that are not accessible by the other sciences, and so the job of the philosopher becomes that of clarifying the language of science, developing logical sophistication, and purifying the field of the nonsense of metaphysics and ethics.”¹

Thus, something should be believed in only if it could be empirically “verified”, and so, all metaphysics went out the window. Nowadays, very few philosophers would hold to such a self-debunking theory, and the only ones who do are very naïve, philosophically ignorant, and logically untrained scientists and militant atheists. Here’s why:

1. Arbitrary: They simply defined metaphysics out of existence instead of actually attempting to prove it to be impossible. How could they have possibly have come to the knowledge that the *only* means of knowledge is empirical verifiability. Wouldn’t that first require infinite knowledge of the universe? Thus, they were arbitrary.

2. Secondary Hypothesis: Given human nature’s propensity to be dogmatic (whether people will admit it or not), scientists always invent secondary hypothesis to protect their theory from being disproven by newly discovered evidence. This would make theories unfalsifiable, and thus, unverifiable.

3. No Morals, No “Ought”s: Because Logical Positivism denied moral realism, it had to, of logical necessity, deny any “ought”s or “should”s. But on this basis, how could they say that one *ought* to believe something if it is verifiable? If there are no real ethics, then there is no necessary reason why someone should believe in something, verifiable or not!

4. No Connection Between Facts and Statements: “If “facts” are the actual states of affairs as they are directly experienced (say, the sensation of redness and roundness at this place and at this time), but “statements” are verbal utterances (consisting of written or voiced words like “red” or “round”), in what sense can we “compare” facts and statements? They are completely different kinds of things. (For instance, the word “round” does not look – is not physically sensed as – round.)”²

5. Communication Impossible: “At this point Ayer asserts that the Vienna Circle had not solved the basic epistemological problem. What is really meant when we say that a statement is verifiable? Does it mean merely that statements about facts are internally coherent with one another? Does it not also mean that statements must be verifiable in relation to facts? Then, if I make statements about my experience of facts, how can I convey the meaning of my experience to you? For my experience is private to me, and your experience is private to you; how then, if we each have to interpret every statement of fact as referring to our own experience, do we ever succeed in communicating with each other?”³

6. Self-Defeating: The verifiability criterion was itself unverifiable. That is, the belief – that for any statement to be true it had to be empirically verified – was itself not empirically verifiable. Thus, by its own standard, the verifiability criterion should not be regarded as true.

7. A Metaphysic Itself: Apropos (6), because the verifiability criterion was a presupposed axiom, it fell under the category of metaphysics, and so, by the Vienna Circle’s own standard, it was nonsense.

8. Other Arguments Against Anti-Metaphysics Apply: (See my lesson, “Overcoming the Anti-Metaphysical Bias”.)

9. Most Arguments Against Scientific Realism Apply: (See my lesson, “A Refutation of Scientific Realism”.)

Scientific Realism

I dealt with Scientific Realism in a previous lesson. (See my lesson, “A Refutation of Scientific Realism”.)

Probability Theory⁴

Having given up on finding a path to full assurance, some epistemologists have tried making a new path with statistical or “probable” knowledge. Instead, they say, a belief should be held in degrees of assurance in proportion to the probability that it is true. This probability is derived from something such as the frequency of occurrence or from the number of people (usually specialists) who hold to that belief.

For example, the degree to which a scientific theory is thought to be true is in proportion to the number of scientists who believe in it and the extent of time to which it has been believed. Thus, a scientific theory should be held with a great degree of assurance if it is believed in by the vast majority of scientists and has been for a great length of time.

Another example would be in determining whether something in history happened or not. The degree to which a historical event should be believed to have happened is proportional to the frequency to which other similar historical events have happened. Atheists usually apply this to miracles (following David Hume⁵). Therefore, they say, miracles are unlikely since they have not happened⁶ and do not happen now.

Of course, using probability theory as an epistemological base is pure folly for the following reasons:

1. Requires Complete Knowledge of the System: How can one even start thinking about what the probabilities are until one has complete knowledge of the entire system? Probabilities will change as new information about the system becomes known. Critics of probability theory have also pointed out the problem of “priors”:

“The mathematical theory of probability allows us to derive more probabilities once we have some probabilities. To give a simple example, given a probability of x for proposition P, the theory tells us that the probability of ~P equals 1 – x; but it does not provide the probability of P, or ~P, or any other proposition ex nihilo. These probabilities we have to start with, and that are not provided by probability theory itself, are usually called the prior probabilities or just priors. How do we come to our priors? This question is differently answered by subjectivists and those hoping for some kind of logical interpretation of probability. According to the former, our priors are just our subjective degrees of confidence. These, of course, may be vastly different for different individuals, but so be it. Those in favour of logical probability hold that there is some objective, or at least more objective, way of determining prior probabilities. It has been suggested, for instance, that the prior probability of a given proposition can be determined on the basis of the syntactical structure of the sentence expressing that proposition, a suggestion that, however, led already to insurmountable difficulties for very simple artificial languages. Other suggestions have proven equally problematic.”⁷

This general problem was shown most profoundly in my lesson, “A Refutation of Scientific Realism” (see Argument l.). Obviously no one but God has this knowledge.

2. Historical One-Time Events: Many events in history are unrepeatable. Thus, this use of probability theory fails to take into account the ingenuity of man. Man is not an automaton. As for miracles, it presents a straw-man view of God by assuming that God is some giant clock who should regularly put out a miracle every hundred years or so just to let man know that He does indeed exist. On the contrary, God’s purpose in miracles is usually to make a very dramatic point, but He has ordained that most events in history take place through the means of ordinary providence. Lastly, but not of least importance, with the New Testament recording the Christological revelation of Jesus the Messiah and its exposition through the Apostles, there is no more need for miracles to confirm an oracle since propositional revelation has ceased and the Holy Spirit provides the assurance to the believer instead.

3. Subjective: The theory ignores the role psychology plays in one’s determining the boundaries of what event or persons (to use the two examples mentioned in the description) should count as an instance of something which will contribute to that set’s frequency. This is a classification problem and is highly subjective. For example, when analyzing the probabilities of miracles, should one classify the event in question first as a miracle and then look for other examples of miracles to determine the probability based on its historical or current frequency? Or should one classify the event as another kind of historical occurrence (based on another aspect of the event), look for other similar examples where people reacted in a similar fashion to a particular event (claimed to be miraculous or not), and consider the disputed event’s status as a miracle irrelevant to the question of whether it happened or not? Also, there is the problem that one will dismiss all other instances of miracles and then use that frequency of zero to determine the probability of miracles occurring (resulting in a zero probability). This is the circular problem which C.S. Lewis pointed out against Hume.⁸

4. It Destroys Science: Experience (especially in the form of science) is predicated on the belief that genuinely new facts can be discovered, but if we are only to believe in something based solely on the past, then on what basis could we believe in something new? This would utterly destroy science. Of course, this brings us back to the more general problem of Induction.

5. All Other Arguments Against Scientific Realism Apply: (See my lesson, “A Refutation of Scientific Realism”.)

Post-Modernism

I dealt with Post-Modernism in the previous lesson. (See my lesson, “The Transcendental Argument for God, Part I: God’s Existence”.)

Conclusion

Saint Paul once wrote to the saints at Colossae:

“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument… See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form… [Philosophy and the tradition of men] are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.” (Colossians 2:1-4, 8-9, 23)

According to Paul, the reason why the heretics at Colossae failed to reach true knowledge and why their beliefs were arbitrary and ignorant was because they started with human-made categories instead of the special, propositional revelation of Christ who was, is, and ever shall be the all-knowing, sovereign Creator of the universe. It is this same error which plagues all autonomous forms of knowledge:

“If philosophy begins with man and his own authority, then the conclusion of philosophy cannot transcend this source – all of man’s thinking reflects his own subjective ordering and interpretation, but nothing of the objective world of reality. If you start with man’s thoughts as your point of reference, you cannot escape phenomenalism and thus skepticism – the egocentric predicament.”⁹

There is simply no way for finite man, by himself, to gain a coherent theory of the universe, God, and man unless he transcends the space-time continuum that constantly impinges upon him. This he cannot do. Thus, the only way for him to have knowledge of “the big questions” is for the answers to these questions to be revealed to him by a Being that does, in fact, transcend contingent reality and who possesses complete knowledge of the universe. The only worldview that can meet this requirement is Revelatory Theism.

Appendix: Which Revelatory Theism?

Now that the necessity of Revelatory Theism has been established, the question still remains: which Revelatory Theism? There is still the choice between Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism, and Islam. In short, one can show that the Old Testament truly does point to Christ and that Christianity is the true religion of the Hebrews.¹⁰ As to Islam, its own Qur’an attests to the authenticity of the Bible even though it contradicts the Bible all over the place!¹¹ Thus, Islam is self-defeating. So, Christianity is indeed the only actual¹² existing worldview that meets the two requirements of being both theistic and revelatory in the propositional sense.

[All Scripture quotes are from the NASB, emphasis mine.]

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1 Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.367, ftnt.203.

2 Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.371, ftnt.208.

3 Cornelius Van Til as quoted in Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.370.

4 Here, I am speaking of the use of statistical “probabilities” as an epistemic base. I am not speaking of its use as a tool in more science-related matters.

5 It should be pointed out that Hume has been roundly refuted by many critics who have used some of the counter-arguments I listed below. See these books here, here, and here, for example.

6 I point out the circularity of this below under the “Subjective” argument.

7 http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000041/article.pdf

8 Some proponents of Hume’s argument have tried to improve on it by including a probability which would necessitate that no testimony which attests to a miracle should count. However, as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes:

“[A] Bayesian analysis sheds no light whatsoever on the structure or substance of the argument, and can do nothing by way of either supporting or refuting the argument. Indeed, any Bayesian analysis of the question of justified belief in miracles must be otiose until the difficult and essential questions concerning “evidence” in relation to an allegedly miraculous occurrence are resolved — at which point any Bayesian analysis will add little except the technical complexity of a formal apparatus that may or may not “clarify” the structure of Hume's argument.

The balancing of probabilities is of no use until it is decided what goes into the balance — that is, what constitutes the evidence that is to be subject to the balancing of probabilities. The point is this; apart from independent philosophical arguments — arguments that would in effect undermine the relevance of a Bayesian analysis to the question of the credibility of reports of the miraculous — no such analysis can, in principle, prove that no testimony can (or cannot) establish the credibility of a miracle.”

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/

9 Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.350, ftnt.176.

10 This shall be the subject of a later series.

11 http://www.lightshinesindarkness.com/bible_koran.htm

12 As opposed to hypothetical

The Knowledge of God, The Necessity of Special Revelation, Part A

The Knowledge of God

The Transcendental Argument for God, Part II

The Necessity of Special Revelation

“No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (John 1:18)

“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” (John 12:46)

Introduction

As was shown in the last lesson, unless God exists, knowledge¹ is impossible. But, that still leaves open the possibility of Deism, the worldview that God created the universe and man but then walked away permanently. Thus, there was neither any interaction with human kind nor special revelation. It is functionally dualistic atheism without all of the problems associated with that view.²

Still, it remains that man would be ignorant about the nature of the universe, the nature of man and God³, the purpose of life, ethical limits, etc. In the past, deists (and others) have filled this gap with autonomous knowledge theories such as Rationalism, Empiricism, Idealism, etc. However, as it will be shown, all autonomous knowledge theories fail because they try to arrive at a coherent theory of the whole universe simply by starting with the finite mind of man instead of the revelation of the eternal God. As Cornelius Van Til said, “But to say how one fact differs from another fact in terms of the space-time continuum requires one to have some intelligible conception of this space-time continuum as a whole.”⁴ Man simply cannot integrate factual data from the universe that impinges upon him into a theory of reality without first knowing what reality as a whole actually is. The only worldview that can meet this criterion is one in which a Being – who transcends this reality and possesses complete knowledge of it – reveals a basic, intelligible conception of the universe, man, and God to man. In other words, man’s knowledge requires a “jump-start” from God.

Thus, the claim of this sub-argument is that unless one presupposes that man has received special, propositional revelation from God that gives man a basic, intelligible conception of the universe, a coherent theory of the space-time continuum, man, and God is impossible.⁵ What will follow will be a brief description of the major autonomous knowledge theories followed-up by equally brief refutations of those theories. I have already dealt with Platonism and Aristotelianism in the last lesson, and so, I will begin with the “Enlightenment” theories starting with Rationalism. [I will note again, before I begin, that I have had no formal philosophical training, and so my descriptions of these philosophies and the arguments against them may not use the proper philosophical language. I will also gladly accept correction if I have misrepresented any of the philosophies mentioned below.]

The Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence, Part II, Special Revelation

Rationalism⁶

The Rationalists, such as Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz, believed that there were “self-evident” truths that could be deduced with certainty (such as mathematics), and from these foundational truths, all other truths could be deduced. In general, they believed that the mind was connected to all other things such that by simply reflecting upon something in one’s mind, man could come up with truth. It became evident, however, that there were many problems with this philosophy:

1. Evidently Not Self-Evident: As time progressed, the Rationalists began to disagree with each other over what was rational and what wasn’t. One would say that something was “self-evident”, another would disagree and call the first “irrational”, and the first would return the favor. It became apparent that what was “rational”, “self-evident”, and “intuitive” to these men was, in fact, based upon their personal, subjective, and emotive opinions.

2. It Destroyed Experience: To quote Cornelius Van Til:

“According to these rationalists, therefore, there was not and there could not be anything new in science.

Yet the very idea of science presupposes that genuinely new facts are discovered and that in being discovered they are not lost in a net of abstract logical relations but really add to a fund of existing knowledge. If the rationalists were right, logic itself would be reduced to an eternal changeless principle of identity. All facts would be wholly known by abstract thought thinking itself. Thus not only would there be no facts not wholly known but the idea of the “wholly known” would become an abstract contentless principle. Logic itself would become meaningless. There would be no longer any process of reasoning; such a process would be absorbed in identity.”⁷

3. It Destroyed Individuality: By connecting all minds together along with everything else in the universe, they reduced everything to a blank identity, a form of monism. They had, therefore, destroyed the self, something that was the foundation for their Rationalism.⁸

4. Without Foundation: It has been shown by mathematicians and philosophers of mathematics that mathematics is not self-consistent unless one adds certain unprovable assumptions. For example, Kurt Gödel proved that full arithmetic which utilizes both addition and multiplication is not fully consistent without the assumption of a Platonic or actual infinity. Furthermore, Descartes’ famous saying, “I think, therefore I am,” is actually faulty reasoning. As David Hume showed, all the statement, “I think” or (more accurately) “thinking”, proves is that thinking is occurring, but it does not prove that there is a unified “self” doing the thinking.

5. Arbitrary: How could they have possibly come to possess the knowledge that all of reality was connected through minds? Didn’t they come to believe that based upon speculation?

Empiricism⁹

Empiricism was the opposite of Rationalism. Instead of believing that everything shared one mind, the empiricists, such as John Locke and George Berkeley, taught that every person was a wholly separate individual whose mind is a tabula rasa, or “blank tablet”. Thus, all knowledge comes through sense perception instead of internal reflection. With this reductionistic epistemology, one of its exponents, David Hume, quickly dissembled it, sending it into the abyss of utter skepticism:

1. Facts Without Any Relation to Each Other: If knowledge comes only through sense-perception, then all our minds consist of is a list of raw data without any connection between one data point and another. Thus, no complete theory of reality could be formed, and without a complete theory of reality, nothing could be said of reality at all because no one could know what reality really is!

2. No Universals, No Knowledge: Without logic and mathematics being presupposed¹⁰, man’s thinking and reasoning processes cannot function, and so, knowledge would be impossible.

3. Causation Questioned: Once sense-perceptions became discrete events recorded by a “blank slate” without connection between them, there was no reason to believe in the law of cause and effect.¹¹

4. Everything is Equally Possible: Without having a complete theory of the universe, no one could know what was probable and what wasn’t. To quote Van Til again:

“Grant an infinite number of possibilities, to begin with, as an absolutely pure empiricism must presuppose, then there is an infinite number of improbabilities to cancel every infinite number of probabilities. That is, there is no probability at all. Such is Hume’s argument. Hume is right when he says again and again that “an entire indifference is essential to chance.” The idea of a law of chances is, strictly speaking, a contradiction in terms. It is to this position of total indifference with respect to the future that anyone embracing a pure empiricism is driven.”¹²

Thus, they destroyed science, the very mode of knowledge which they wanted to use exclusively.

5. Goodbye Self!: If our minds are simply “blank slates” passively taking in information, then there is no reason to believe that we are unified cognitive egos. That is, as Hume pointed out, the “self” would just be a “bundle of perceptions”, a bunch of thoughts without connection or purpose.

6. Most Arguments Against Scientific Realism Apply: (See my lesson, “A Refutation of Scientific Realism”.)

Kantianism¹³

Immanuel Kant was a philosopher from Prussia who taught that both the Rationalists and the Empiricists were wrong and that both of their extremes would lead to the destruction of experience. He criticized the Rationalists for believing that everything could be known from innate ideas and the Empiricists for believing that the mind was a blank slate. Instead, he believed that no knowledge could be gained without sense-perception, but he also said that the mind imposes concepts such as space, time, quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Greg Bahnsen further explains:

“These mental impositions are “transcendentally” necessary – that is, they are presupposed for the intelligibility of any experience. Thus, “the understanding is itself the lawgiver of nature”; man’s active mind provides the order and regularity necessary for rational and scientific knowledge is only of things as they appear to us (phenomena), rather than of reality as it is “in itself” (noumena). In the very manner that Kant “saved science” (rendering all rational knowledge phenomenal only), he left plenty of room for a realm that transcends the mind’s activity, namely the noncognitive and nonrational experience of human freedom and moral obligation.”¹⁴

Thus, Kant banished metaphysics, including God, into the realm of the unknowable.

1. Anti-Metaphysics is Itself a Metaphysic: “If man is autonomous, then he acts as autonomous when he is engaged in intellectual interpretation. That is to say, in assuming man’s autonomy Kant virtually takes for granted the essentially legislative character of human thought.… On Kant’s view man’s autonomous intellectual activity can tell us what ultimate reality cannot be. And to say what ultimate reality cannot be is, in effect, the same as to say what it can and must be. Kant’s rejection of metaphysics simply leads him to the adoption of a new metaphysics.”¹⁵

2. All Knowledge Becomes Personal: If every mind imposes order from itself upon the world without any presupposed rational origin of those minds, then it follows that every mind would impose different orders upon reality. Thus, all ‘truth’ would be person-specific and relative. This applies especially to science, the very thing Kant was trying to save, since it was reduced to psychology.

3. The Relative Law of Non-Contradiction: “Kant argued that since it is the thinking subject that itself contributes the categories of universality and necessity, we must not think of these as covering any reality that exists or may exist wholly independent of the human mind. By using the law of non-contradiction we may and must indeed determine what is possible, but the possibility that we thus determine is subjective rather than objective. It is a possibility for us.… The validity of universals is to be taken as frankly due to a motion and a vote; it is conventional and nothing more.”¹⁶

4. The Phenomenal Self: “The “phenomenal” self is the self as it must appear in our experience of it. But this apparent self is the projection of the organizing activity of the mind – that is, the product of a “noumenal” self which is “in itself” free and undetermined. In the nature of the case, this noumenal self could not be rationally understood or interpreted (by the categories of understanding imposed by the active mind). It is a “transcendental unity of apperception,” a mere place-marker for one’s mental activity. In the “transcendental dialectic,” Kant discussed the “psychological paralogism” (or fallacy) that there is a substantial self, with continuing personal identity, that does the thinking.”¹⁷

Modern Idealism

Modern Idealism was the philosophy of choice for many, if not most, philosophers at the beginning of the twentieth century, but now, it is dead as a movement. Like Rationalism, the Idealists taught that all particulars are a form of a single mind transcending individual reality “coming in degrees to perfect self-consciousness.”¹⁸ Therefore, all of reality is unified and rational¹⁹, and so, the gap between the noumenal and phenomenal realm disappears. However, any statement about reality is only a partial truth seeing that it comes from a limited perspective, only a part of the perfect consciousness. Thus, any attempt to gain systematic knowledge is doomed a priori.

1. Changing Reality, Changing Truth: Because Idealism locates reason and truth immanently in changing reality (and not transcendently as in the Triune God of Christianity), reason and truth both change along with reality. Thus, ‘truth’ is in total flux, and knowledge becomes impossible.

2. Subjective Truth: If man’s knowledge is simply a part of the perfect consciousness and thus a limited perspective of the whole, then every man’s view of reality will be different but still equally valid. ‘Truth’ would be relative.

3. Reality an Illusion?: In order to avoid (1), some Idealists made time an illusion, and so, the universe was made non-temporal or unchanging. In that case, all of our sense-experiences would be illusory, and we would be reduced to bland abstract logic.

4. No Self: As a consequence of either Idealist route (i.e. 1. or 3.), all cognitive egos are absorbed into one great monistic reality, and so, the self is an illusion. It is either an illusion in constant flux or a changeless abstract illusion but an illusion nonetheless.

5. Arbitrary: How could they have possibly come to possess this knowledge that reality was Idealistic? Didn’t they come to believe that based on speculation? Why should we not believe in pragmatism, Idealism’s arch-enemy instead?

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1 Again, warranted true belief.

2 Of course, many modern deists 1) substitute the belief that God specially created man for some sort of non-teleological evolution and 2) possibly deny the existence of man’s soul. In these cases, (1) would functionally be dualistic atheism *with* all of the associated problems and (2) would functionally be materialism with all of its problems.

3 This would especially include the belief that He has left man alone after creating him.

4 Cornelius Van Til as quoted in Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.382.

5 This is not to say that autonomous man can’t make one up. That happens all the time. However, such a conception of the universe would be arbitrary.

6 Here, I refer to Enlightenment Rationalism.

7 Cornelius Van Til as cited in Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.335.

8 Descartes once said, “Cogito ergo sum,” I think, therefore I am. His own existence was “proven” from the rational deduction of him thinking (though, see the next point).

9 Here, I am referring to Enlightenment Empiricism.

10 And as I showed above (see “Rationalism”, Argument 4.), yes, they do have to be presupposed.

11 For a further discussion of this subject and its problems for non-theists, see James N. Anderson’s “Secular Responses to the Problem of Induction”.

12 Cornelius Van Til as cited in Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.343.

13 The length of this description could never do justice to Kant’s philosophy, and so, for a lengthier description, see here or read Greg Bahnsen’s work, Van Til’s Apologetic, pp.343-358.

14 Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.344, ftnt.170.

15 Cornelius Van Til as cited in Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.345.

16 Cornelius Van Til as cited in Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.346.

17 Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), pp.350-351, ftnt.177.

18 Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1998), p.359, ftnt.189.

19 In fact, according to Idealism, reality is reason itself!

The Knowledge of God, Pressing the Antithesis: Acts 17

The Knowledge of God

Pressing the Antithesis

Acts 17:22-34, “The Covenant Lawsuit”

Introduction

Now that we have discussed the Bible’s view of metaphysics and epistemology, we can finally move on to the application of our worldview to the realm of apologetics and evangelism. In Acts 17, we shall see how Paul defended the faith and evangelized those who didn’t share his worldview. Did he start by trying to build commonalities between the two respective worldviews, or did he assert his own worldview in contradistinction to the pagan one from the outset of his speech?

Acts 17:22-34, “The Covenant Lawsuit”

Context

While on his second missionary journey, Paul traveled to Athens and was disgusted by the extreme idolatry (Acts 17:16). Spurred on by the desire to preach the good news of the one true God, Paul starts witnessing to those in the marketplace (v.17). Present among the philosophers in the city of philosophy itself were the Epicureans and the Stoics who frequented the market place to gather followers and set up debates. As they listened to Paul speaking about “Jesus and the resurrection”, they were confused at the “deities” he was proclaiming, probably assuming that Paul was promoting the worship of a male/female deity pair, Iesous and ‘Anastasis’ (v.18)!¹ Curious as to what new religion had been brought to Athens that day, they invited him to the Areopagus² to tell them of his new religion (v.19-21). It was here that Paul proclaimed God’s covenant lawsuit against the world of unbelief.

Short Excursus: The Covenant Lawsuit

A covenant lawsuit was an ancient near-eastern diplomatic announcement from a ruling king to a rebellious vassal king or governor. It was the declaration to cease their rebellious ways and return to being faithful to the covenant that that vassal made with the suzerain king. The process sometimes included the following:

1.) The Ambassador’s Proclamation: The ruling king, or ‘suzerain’, sends ambassadors to the vassal to proclaim the lawsuit.

2.) The Covenant History: The vassal is reminded of the covenant history. He is told of who the suzerain is and his relation to him.

3.) The Covenant Rights: By naming the stipulations, the ambassador can now remind the vassal of the suzerain’s right to be obeyed.

4.) The Conviction: The transgressions of the vassal are enumerated showing that he is breaking the covenant.

5.) The Call to Repentance: The ambassador admonishes the vassal to change his ways.

6.) The Consequences: The vassal is told of the consequences if he does not recant. This would mean a declaration of war and an invasion that would take place at an unknown time, likely when the rebellious vassal least expects it.

7.) The Proof: Sometimes proof is given that the suzerain will be faithful to carry out his threat. The proof given by the suzerain was sometimes to remind the covenant breaker of the fate of the last rebellious vassal.

There are numerous examples of God giving covenant lawsuits via His ambassadors, the prophets, throughout the Old Testament (Isaiah 41, Hosea 4, Amos 2:6-3:15, etc.) and the New Testament (Matthew 11:20-24, 21:33-44, Acts 2:14-40, and of course, 17:23-31).

Exegesis

Verse 22

“So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ‘Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.’” (Acts 17:22)

Amidst their many idols, Paul tells the Athenians that they are very ‘religious’. Actually, the word used here in Greek is ‘deisidaimonesterous’, the longest Greek word in the New Testament. It really means ‘superstitious’ and was the contemptuous word used by the Greeks to describe ‘Barbarian’ cults and religions. If Paul is trying to build common ground between the pagan Greek worldview and his, he got off to a bad start.

Verse 23: The Ambassador’s Proclamation

“For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.” (Acts 17:23)

The Greeks believed that the gods would come down to earth occasionally, and the places where they touched down would be considered sacred ground.³ There were various occult tricks used to supposedly determine these places so as to place a shrine and/or altar there. Sometimes the deities that came there were not known, and so, fearful not to offend this deity, an inscription of ‘To an Unknown God’ was placed on the altar. Several of these places were found in Athens, and the Greeks were careful to sacrifice on these altars so as not to bring the god’s disfavor upon them.

The sentence, “Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you”, should not be thought of as saying that, in spite of their idol worship, they are really worshipping the true God by sacrificing on that altar. It should be taken as, “Contrary to what you worship in ignorance, I now proclaim this different God to you…” Unlike their unknown deities, Paul’s God could be known and, in fact, was and is known by all men since He is everywhere present and makes Himself evident to them (Romans 1:19). Thus, Paul begins to proclaim God’s covenant lawsuit against them…

Verses 24-26: The Covenant History

“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation…” (Acts 17:24-26)

We’ll take this one verse at a time:

v.24

Paul proclaims that his personal God made the entire cosmos out of nothing and rules over it (John 1:3, Romans 4:17, Hebrews 11:3, Revelation 4:11, etc.). This is in direct contradistinction to the pagan Greek worldview which considered the impersonal cosmos itself to be self-existent, eternal, and the origin of all beings including the gods.

Paul continues by saying that, because God is the Lord of heaven and earth, He cannot be contained by human temples. He is omnipresent in His creation (1 Kings 8:27, Psalm 139:7-12, Jeremiah 23:24). This is in contrast to the pagan gods who were finite and sometimes bound to a certain city or nation.

v.25

Unlike the gods of the heathen whose power was somewhat dependent upon men’s sacrifices, God does not need anything from man since He self-exists (Exodus 3:13-15, Isaiah 41:4, 44:6-7, 48:12, John 1:1-3, John 5:26, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:16-17) and in fact, gives life to all men (Nehemiah 9:6, Romans 11:36, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:16-17, etc.).

v.26

All the nations of men on earth descend from a common ancestor (no, not an ape!) created by God (Genesis 3:20). In contrast, some pagan mythologies have each race of men made separately such that each is viewed as a separate animal.

Also, not only did He create this man in the beginning, He continues to rule over the nations and appoints the times and places of their rise and fall (Joshua 11:20, 2 Samuel 24:1, Proverbs 16:9-10, 21:1, Isaiah 10:5-7, 46:9-10, Lamentations 3:37-39, Daniel 4:34-35, Habakkuk 2:12-13, Romans 11:7-10, Ephesians 1:10-11, etc.). This was unlike the pagan gods who, especially according to the Epicureans in Paul’s audience, believed that the gods were disinterested in mankind’s affairs and certainly didn’t have complete control over history. Instead, the pagan view of history was such that whatever happened occurred as the result of the eternal exchange between the impersonal principles of chaos and order, resulting in a pointless, cyclical, and fatalistic⁴ history.

Being the creations of God living in His cosmos and given life by Him, all men are bound to Him covenantally. It was that way from the beginning (Genesis 2:15-17) and is that way for every descendent of Adam (Romans 5:12-21).

Verses 27-28: The Conviction

“…that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’” (Acts 17:27-28)

Even though God is immanent in His creation⁵ and makes Himself known to His creatures by what has been made such that they are without excuse (Romans 1:19-20), these very men suppress this knowledge and exchange it for a lie (Romans 1:18, 21-32). They walk around in darkness (John 1:5, 3:19, 8:12, 12:35, 46, 1 John 2:11), constantly groping around in their self-induced ignorance (Romans 1:21-22, Ephesians 4:17-19).

Paul then quotes two pagan poets, Epimenides and Arastus. Some commentators have said that Paul was quoting these two poets favorably as if they, with their philosophical reason, got close to the truth. Nothing could be further from the case. The quotes from Epimenides and Arastus are attributed to Zeus! Instead, Paul is quoting them to show that man takes the truth about God and exchanges it for a lie by attributing it to falsehood (Romans 1:25). In other words, the poet-philosophers quoted here got it extremely wrong! Paul is here convicting these men that they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).

Verse 29: The Covenant Rights

“Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.” (Acts 17:29)

Because God is the Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of all things, idols, created in man’s mind and formed by the work of his hands do not deserve to be worshipped. Rather than shunning His light, YHWH alone deserves the adoration of mankind. The idolatry of sinful men ignores and turns from the duty to worship the one true God.

Verse 30: The Call to Repentance

“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,” (Acts 17:30)

Up until this new aeon, or age, God let the nations go their own way, not bringing a final end to their idolatry (Psalm 147:19-20, Acts 14:16-17). But now, the time of reckoning has been inaugurated and sinful man is called to repentance so that he can escape the consequences of the covenant lawsuit at the consummation of this eschatological aeon (Matthew 13:36-43).⁶

Verse 31: The Consequences

“…because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed…” (Acts 17:31)

The consequence of not repenting will be the verdict of ‘guilty’ at the eschatological judgment. This judgment will come on a fixed day not specified by the suzerain, a day which the rebellious vassals least expect:

• “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matthew 24:36-39)

• “Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13)

• “For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3)

• “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” (2 Peter 3:10)

• “So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.” (Revelation 3:3)

• (Matthew 24:27, 24:44, Revelation 16:15)

The Last Day of final reckoning greatly widens the gap between the Greeks’ worldview and Paul’s. In the Greek worldview, history went in endless circles⁷ without beginning or end due to the eternal clash between chaos and order. In Paul’s worldview, however, the seeming cycles of history occur due to the tension between man’s ingenuity (due to being made in the image of God) and man’s sinfulness. Instead of endless cycles, Paul’s view of history was the linear history foreordained by the sovereign God with a creational beginning out of nothing and a consummating finish which will put an end to immorality⁸, death, and suffering, ushering in an eternity of peace.

Verse 31: The Proof

“…having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31)

The resurrection wasn’t ‘proof’ in the sense that it gave evidence that Christ’s warnings of judgment were trustworthy. Rather, the death and resurrection of Christ was proof of the Final Judgment in that it was the Judgment. The cross of Christ was the outpouring of God’s wrath which would have been given to believers on the Last Day but was poured out on Christ instead. Paul could say that he knew the Day of Judgment was inevitable because it has already begun.⁹ The resurrection of Christ was the Judgment Day verdict of ‘righteous’ because he was the obedient Son, making Him fit to be the judge of all the earth¹⁰:

• “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power…Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ--this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:24)

• “God raised Him up on the third day…And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead.” (Acts 10:40, 42)

• “…who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,” (Romans 1:4)

• “Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.” (Romans 4:23-25)

We should note that Paul binds up the event of the resurrection of the Son of God with the revelatory explanation found in Scripture. Here and throughout the New Testament, the act of the resurrection is never artificially removed from the meaning of it given by the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles. To quote one author:

“At no point does Paul entertain Christ’s resurrection as a brute fact, that is, as a fact that exists independent of God’s eternal decree and revelation in history. To argue for the fact of the resurrection is to presuppose its meaning, and to argue for the meaning of the resurrection is to presuppose its factuality. But the point is that the argument Paul presents regarding the resurrection of Christ from the dead presupposes both its fact and its meaning as a covenantal and eschatological event.”¹¹

This stands in stark contrast with those in our own day who, desiring to please those who don’t believe in Biblical inerrancy, think that they can prove the validity of the Christian faith by appealing to the factuality of the resurrection without appealing to God’s inerrant Word. As our exegesis of this text shows, this is folly. Even the Epicureans in Paul’s audience could have believed in the resurrection of Christ without believing in Christianity by saying that the resurrection was the result of an adjustment in the falling of individual atoms. Even some atheists in modern times (though few in number) believe in the resurrection of Christ but still hold to their atheism since they provide an explanation compatible with their atheistic metaphysic. Presenting the resurrection as a brute fact without the theological explanation given in God’s inerrant Word will simply allow the unbeliever to interpret it through the lens of their own worldview and end with their own worldview. Instead of converting, they would simply consign the resurrection to a section in Ripley’s “Believe It or Not.” The resurrection of Christ only maintains its convicting power over unbelievers when it is combined with the meaning given to it by Scripture.

Verses 32-34

“Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, ‘We shall hear you again concerning this.’ So Paul went out of their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.” (Acts 17:32-34)

The bodily resurrection from the dead as a good thing was anathema to the pagan Greek worldview. Matter was something to overcome and be rid of. The spirit without a body was thought to be ‘enlightened’, ascending a step in the chain of being, thus the scoffing from the Greeks. All in all, from the beginning to the end of Paul’s sermon, Paul is not building commonalities between worldviews but pressing the antithesis by attacking the opposing worldview and giving his own in place of the other.

Summary and Conclusion

Summary of Apologetic Method

1.) Ambassadors: As children of the New Covenant, we are ambassadors for Christ to a world in darkness:

• “…Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake,” (Romans 1:4-5)

• “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16)

• “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

• “…the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Ephesians 6:19-20)

2.) The Covenant Lawsuit: As such, we are to proclaim God’s covenant lawsuit against man’s rebellion along with its gospel offer to escape the wrath of the Almighty.

3.) Reject the Wisdom of the World: We are always to remember that the unregenerate man’s mind is darkened and suppressing the intimate knowledge of God by exchanging it for a lie (Romans 1:18, 25). Because of this, that part of sinful man’s wisdom and epistemology, being autonomous, is utterly futile (Ephesians 4:17-19) and can never come to know God (1 Corinthians 1:21). Thus, the Christian is to reject all autonomous epistemologies, i.e. those epistemologies which assume the ultimacy of human categories instead of revealed ones.

4.) Pressing the Antithesis: Instead, we are to press the antithesis by starting with God’s revelation in Scripture (a revealed epistemology vs. an autonomous one). By using Scripture’s theory of knowledge instead of unregenerate man’s, the unbeliever cannot give his spin on the evidence by simply interpreting whatever fact he is given through the lens of his worldview.

5.) Conviction of Suppression: As with Paul citing the Greek philosopher-poets against their own worldview, we are to show that the unregenerate man is suppressing the truth of God and thus convict him of his sin. In short, we are “destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). This can be done, as we shall see in the philosophical sections, by showing that his worldview a.) leads to irrationality and/or b.) is arbitrary.

6.) Repent and Believe: We are to then leave it up to the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts in order to bring them to repentance:

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:1-7)

Conclusion

This will end our exegetical section on apologetics. Now, we will move on to specific philosophical argumentation against false worldviews and epistemologies. I should note that it was necessary to complete an exegetical study of the Christian worldview before jumping into philosophical argumentation since one cannot have a theory of knowledge without a theory of reality.¹² Hopefully, I have shown that Scripture teaches this very thing. Now, we shall move on to doing the very thing that Scripture commands: “destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” and “taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

[All Scripture quotes are from the NASB, emphasis mine.]

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1 i.e. Jesus and ‘Resurrection’

2 i.e. The place in Athens where new religions and foreign deities were introduced.

3 This was a common practice/belief in the ancient world. Just read through Genesis and find how many times an altar was made when one had a vision of God.

4 I should note, here, that fatalism should be distinguished from Divine Providence since the former is impersonal and meaningless while the latter is personal and full of purpose. Secondly, in fatalism, the end is ordained despite your actions whereas in Providence, the end is ordained through the secondary means of your actions.

5 Again, this is contrary to the Epicureans’ view that divinities don’t care about the affairs of men and against the Stoics who had an elitist view of knowledge, namely that only philosophers had access to the divine reason.

6 “Paul means that before the inauguration of this semi-eschatological age, God had not brought a final or ultimate display of judgment against idolatry. To be sure, many provisional expressions of judgment appear in the old covenant, but nothing of truly eschatological significance appeared until ‘now.’…In other words, the appointed day of judgment, which brings a definitive verdict against those who worship idols in ignorance, looms imminent on the horizon of redemptive history. The times of ignorance in which God overlooked the sin of idolatry have given way to a period of impending, eschatological judgment.”

–Lane G. Tipton in Revelation and Reason, K. Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton, eds., (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007), p.47-48.

7 For example, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, said, “Future generations will have nothing new to witness, even as our forefathers beheld nothing more than we of today, but that if a man comes to his fortieth year, and has any understanding at all, he has virtually seen – thanks to their similarity – all possible happenings, both past and to come” (Meditations 11.1). This is very similar to parts of Ecclesiastes when the writer is speaking from an autonomous and humanistic standpoint (Ecclesiastes 1:2-11). In the end, however, when he saw true wisdom by fearing God, his conclusion was to “fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). When seen from the worldview of Biblical theism, history is seen as linear with an end in sight, and all things happen for God’s glory.

8 This was especially foreign to the Epicurean philosophers who believed that the gods were so far removed from the affairs of mankind that they didn’t care what men on earth did morally.

9 This is part of the already/not-yet or ‘inaugurated’ eschatology of Scripture. What is inaugurated now in part will be consummated in full at a later time.

10 Lane Tipton sums it up this way:

“[T]he judgment that will befall all covenant breakers at the end of the age has already befallen Christ at the beginning of the age. This implies that all who do not identify with the resurrected one by faith and repentance will bear personally the eternal judgment to be executed by him as judge at the end of the age, that is, at the end of ta nyn.

The hint of an implicit premise arises with the mention not of the resurrection per se, but of the resurrection of Christ “from the dead.” Christ’s resurrection from the dead assumes that he has faced the judgment of God, since, “just as it is appointed for men to die once and then comes judgment. So also Christ…” (Heb. 9:27-28). This means that for Christ the resurrection from the dead entails a previous encounter with the consummate judgment of God (v.27). Immediately before, in Hebrews 9:26, Christ is presented as a sacrifice for sins at the consummation of the ages. That is, the reality of eternal judgment befell Christ in his obedience and satisfaction. This point from Hebrews finds a close parallel in Paul’s argument in Acts 17:31: the eschatological judgment threatened there has already been applied to one man, Christ. As Ridderbos notes, ‘To Paul, the eschatological reality of the divine judgment and the divine acquittal are revealed in the cross and in the resurrection of Christ.’”

-Lane G. Tipton in Revelation and Reason, K. Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton, eds., (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007), p.51-52.

11 Lane G. Tipton in Revelation and Reason, K. Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton, eds., (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007), p.53.

12 Some say that a neutral epistemology will yield a correct view of reality. My point in these exegetical studies was to show that a.) there is no such thing as a neutral epistemology and b.) one’s theory of knowledge presupposes a theory of reality.

The Knowledge of God, The Wisdom of God, Part A

The Knowledge of God

The Wisdom of God

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, “The Wisdom of the Wise”

From The Princess Bride:

Vizzini: Let me put it this way: have you ever heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates?

Westley: Yes.

Vizzini: Morons.

Introduction

From Romans 1, we learned that post-lapsarian¹ man’s mind became darkened and futile in thought. As a result, man took his intimate knowledge of the truth of God and exchanged it for a lie. These lies took the form of false worldviews, and as punishment, God gave them over to their own imaginations which led to degrading worship and self-destructive lifestyles.

In 1 Corinthians 1-2, Paul discusses the wisdom of the post-lapsarian man vs. the eschatological wisdom of God. This is an extremely important text for the Christian doctrine of epistemology as it discusses why sinful man rejects the truth of Christianity and finds it to be ‘foolish’. This is the last section on epistemology which will finally allow us to move on to the application of our worldview in apologetics and evangelism.

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, “The Wisdom of the Wise”

Context

Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthian church to correct a few disturbing conditions there. There were factions splitting the church; there was gross immorality; Corinthian believers were suing each other; there was abuse of the Lord’s Supper; and there was false teaching concerning the resurrection, just to name a few. There was also the fact that Corinth was a center of Greek cultural and philosophical thought, called Hellenism. As such, this worldview might have been influencing the Corinthian believers to rely on autonomous philosophical reasoning² to acquire truth rather than starting with the truths of Scripture. This prompted Paul to discuss what the unbelieving world considers ‘wisdom’ vs. the wisdom of God in the gospel (v.17). It was this issue that Paul was dealing with in chapters 1 and 2.

Exegesis

Verse 1:18

“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

Paul gives a summary of the topic he is about to discuss. To those “who are perishing” (i.e., unbelievers) the gospel message sounds silly, irrational, absolutely incredible, and mythic. It was that way back then, and it is that way now. Unbelievers find the gospel story to be absolutely incredible and deem it to be ‘myth’. In contrast, those who have had their eyes opened by the Holy Spirit know that the salvation given by God is true and have fixed their hope on a later day.

Verses 1:19-21

“For it is written, “I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:19-21)

The quoted Old Testament text is from Isaiah where the ‘wise’ men of Judah where advising the king to make an alliance with Egypt when threatened with an invasion by the Assyrians. They had no faith that God would deliver them from such a threat. In the end, Egypt was of no use, and God miraculously delivered Judah from the hand of the Assyrian army after all of Jerusalem repented (Isaiah 37:14-38). The ‘wisdom’ of the wisest men of Judah was folly.

Here, Paul was likely using this verse in reference to all unbelievers who call themselves ‘wise’ in general and Greek philosophers in specific. In fact, the words in the Greek used for ‘wisdom’ and ‘wise’ are the words referring to philosophic wisdom and philosophers. Thus, the verse could be made to say, “I will destroy the philosophy of the philosopher…”³

• “What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, ‘THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.’” (Romans 3:3-4)

• “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:8-10)

• “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:1-3)

• “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)

As we saw in Romans 1, because of their sinful nature, unbelieving man invented philosophies and religions that suppressed the intimate knowledge of God which he possessed. Because of this enslavement of the mind, the smartest unbelieving man, through the use of all of his intellectual faculties, never came up with God as the answer.⁴

Though man’s mind was once darkened and came up with worldviews contrary to Scripture, God, by His providential plan, has overturned their worldviews by raising Christ from the dead:

“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31)

Verses 1:22-25

“For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-25)

The Jewish opposition to Jesus wanted Christ to show them a sign from heaven to confirm that He was the Christ. However, they should have known that He was the Messiah by seeing that he fulfilled the prophetic witness:

• “The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.” (Matthew 16:1-4)

• “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:39-47)

Of course, Christ never gave them a sign since He knew that man’s darkened mind would dismiss such evidence:

• “But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’ ” (Luke 16:30-31)

• “Therefore take heed, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you: ‘BEHOLD, YOU SCOFFERS, AND MARVEL, AND PERISH; FOR I AM ACCOMPLISHING A WORK IN YOUR DAYS, A WORK WHICH YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE, THOUGH SOMEONE SHOULD DESCRIBE IT TO YOU.’ ” (Acts 13:40-41)

The Jews dismissed Christ because He didn’t fit their view of what the Messiah should have been, and the Greeks dismissed Christ because a bodily resurrection from the dead was ‘irrational’ to them. However, God’s wisdom in the gospel is eschatological: its unveiling awaits the end times. Though there are many intelligent unbelievers who dismiss the Christian faith as foolish, God will show their ‘wisdom’ to be idiocy on the Last Day.

Verses 1:26-31

“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.’” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

For the most part, it was the meek and lowly that accepted Christ, not the powerful and wealthy. It was the simple that believed, not the wise:

• “At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.’” (Matthew 11:25-30)

• “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, ‘He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS’; and again, ‘THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.’” (1 Corinthians 3:18-20)

• “Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” (James 2:5)

This was so that no one could claim that they accepted Christ because they thought that the gospel was ‘rational’ according to their own autonomous ‘wisdom’. The Christian’s salvation shall come from God alone.

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1 i.e. After the fall of man into sin.

2 i.e. An epistemology that starts with man and what he considers ‘rational’, ‘reasonable’, and ‘logical’. It makes human categories ultimate rather than revealed categories given by God.

3 I should note, here, that I and, more importantly, the Scriptures do not condemn intellectual study or philosophy. In fact, I study philosophy quite a bit. However, what Scripture does condemn is autonomous philosophy, a philosophy which begins with man as the starting point of predication instead of Scripture.

4 This places obvious limits on the usefulness of natural theology, the attempt to use general revelation to come up with the existence, attributes, and laws of God apart from special revelation.