The whole of Christian Faith lies on two anxioms:

1) God exists.
2) God has revealed Himself through His Word, which is the Bible.

Throughout the history of the church, these two anxioms used to be accepted by almost all people. During the Reformation, and even long before, all Europeans held to these anxioms. Now look again today, and you will find that very few people actually accept anxiom #2. I actually met an atheist last summer, and he did not accept either anxioms. All that he wanted to have is PROOF. However, God expects love and trust from us, and love does not require proof. In fact, I would even argue that faith and fact are opposite to each other. Where there is fact, there cannot be faith. Faith does not rely on first-hand knowledge, but second-hand knowledge. While second-hand knowledge is required to exercise faith, it differs from first-hand knowledge in that it is not obtained at the horse's mouth. For example, a student may read in his science textbook that the speed of light is 3*10^8 m/s and believe it, or he may choose to go into the lab and measure the speed of light to obtain 3.1*10^8 m/s, and because it is pretty close to what the textbook says, he knows it to be true. This, however, did not require faith from him, since he had access to direct facts. (Now you might argue that he had faith in his instruments, his eyes, etc, but this is beyond the point).

When we present the gospel to unbelievers, we are basically transmitting them second-hand information, which itself was written down in the Scripture by those who had access to the facts. When new revelation would come, it was normal for people to demand proof, such as Paraoh did to Moses, or the Baal priests asked to Elijah, since new revelation is like a scientific hypothesis: it needs to be proved before being accepted as a theory. The same principle applies in the academic world. Scientists basically do their own research (which is first-hand knowledge), and publish their findings in scientific journals (which becomes second-hand knowledge), and is made available to other scientists to look at and use. Now since they do not always have the same equipment to reproduce the experiments, they ultimately must have faith in what they read in the scientific journals. The same truth applies to the Scripture. The seeker must come to the Scripture apart from proof, or he is placing the cart before the horse. Since we are required to come to God by faith, it would be inconsistent to attempt "proving" the gospel to the seeker, anyway. Moreover, although the seeker may be able to have a natural or historic faith in the doctrines of Christianity, this would still not suffice for him to attain salvation, since there needs to be the supernatural monergistic work of the Holy Spirit in him to become a true believer. So we realize how we are a long way off from using natural means for bringing someone to salvation.

Ultimately, for the believer the Gospel does prove itself in the end through the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, as John Calvin points out. This could be compared to the scientist being able to reproduce the scientific experiments he reads about in his own lab. But before this occurs, he must first have accepted the two anxioms of Christianity, just like the scientist must accept the scientific method. As a consequence of these things, when the evangelist comes to an unbeliever, he must know if the unbeliever accepts the two axioms to start with, or otherwise, the gospel offer will avail to nothing. In the even that the unbeliever has already been so hardened as to reject the two anxioms, than the evangelist is not responsible to present to him the gospel. He may attempt to get the unbeliever to accept the two anxioms, but that is not the work of the evangelist, it is the work of the apologist.

Consequently, before the gospel is preached, these two anxioms must be relied upon, or we are not going to go anywhere. Therefore, when the evangelist meets a reprobate mind that rejects the anxioms, he is simply to pass over him and move on, just like God has already passed over him. As for the apologist, he may try to convince him to accept the two fundamental anxioms but if he persists in rejecting the foundation, he will have to be left alone.

I think this is basically a good summary of why we must rely on some form of presuppositional apologetics in the end, any other method is bound to be inconsistent with the system itself.

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Jean-David Jutras
URCNA
Alberta

I've got to say I disagree with the above, but perhaps I merely misunderstand you. Why would one only be able to believe or trust that something is true if it hasn't been proved to them firsthand? For instance, Romans 10:9 says that in order for someone to be saved they must believe that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Wouldn't your argument prove then that none of those who saw Jesus alive after seeing him die could "believe" that he was alive after death? And wouldn't that prove Jesus was in error for saying one can believe based on both first hand facts or based on second hand information?:

"Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But he said to them, 'Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.'
Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.' Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!' Jesus said to him, 'Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'" (John 20:24-29)

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C. Gorsuch
Glencullen Baptist
Portland, Oregon

I disagree strongly with the OP.

You say that:

"God expects love and trust from us, and love does not require proof. In fact, I would even argue that faith and fact are opposite to each other."

The proof of the Gospel is the resurection of Christ and we have faith because it is a fact. Your post is actually classicaly liberal in its attempt to disasociate the gospel from historical fact. To do so destroys the Gospel.

We are commanded to proclaim the Gospel, we do not know if God will open the eyes of those who hear but if he does or not that is his sovereign choice. We cannot presuppose that he will not.

I agree that a presupositional approach is both the logical and biblically correct approach and that unbelievers will not respond without the gift of regeneration but we must never retreat from proclaiming and defending the historical facts of the Gospel.

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Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
England

"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."

I agree with the underlying premise of the OP: people only accept the truth of the Gospel after they are regenerated and their hearts are able to accept it through the work of the Holy Spirit, and no amount of "hard facts" will persuade them. This is plainly obvious in the example of the Pharisees and other contemporaries of Christ who, even though they saw Christ's miracles first hand, chose to reject Him because of the hardness of their hearts. And I also agree in general with the two axioms of God's existence and His revelation in the Bible as a basis for apologetics.

However, I do object to the definition of faith as being opposite of fact, and won't belabor the point, since others have already pointed out why this is flawed. Another minor point is that while we are told to "pass over and move on" from someone who does no accept these premises, I disagree that God has "already passed over him." I don't think this is necessarily true, since God can affect regeneration at any point in their life. To assume someone has no chance of being saved simply because their hearts are hard at a given point in time is invalid. God hadn't passed over Paul when he persecuted Christians, but it simply wasn't the time for him to be called in God's perfect plan.

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Mason
Member, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA)
New York, NY

"Come now, and let us reason together," says the Lord, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." - Isaiah 1:18

The Bible does use the word "faith" in different ways. James speaks of the faith of the demons, and points out that it is not a justifying faith, but merely a mental assent. In other places, faith is equivalent to trust in general, and in a third case, the Bible speaks of saving faith.

When I said that faith and fact are opposite, I did not mean to say that faith had no relation at all to fact, but rather, that faith could exist were facts have not been eye-witnessed, or in other words, were no proofs had been provided.

Do you have faith that the earth is a globe in the same sense that you have faith that Christ died for you? I hope you won't say yes. That the earth is a globe is a fact, and this does not require faith to accept. You just accept it because you eyesight confirms it. That Christ died on the cross is indeed a fact, but that he died for you is not a fact (unless you happen to be an Arminian), but requires faith. Perhaps I should have made my semantics clearer by pointing out that when a fact is known, there is always natural faith, or a mental assent to the fact that comes out of a rational man most naturally. However, faith in Christ and the gospel is of a different essence; it does not rely on eye-witnessed fact. Saving faith contains a supernatural element, which is a gift from God, and while it does ultimately rest on a mental assent to secondary or primary knowledge, it is not of that essence. Now the opposite of the natural is the supernatural and it is in this respect that I meant to say that "fact" (the natural) is opposite to "faith" the (supernatural).

My post does not attempt to dissociate the gospel from historical fact, and it is a high charge, and extremely insulting to call me a liberal (although you do not do so directly). That the resurrection of Christ is a fact that proves the gospel, I agree. But is it a fact that you eye-witnessed yourself? It is a fact that is recorded in each of the four gospel. But how do you know that the four gospels are accurate and true historic accounts? Do you not have to receive them with faith? The resurrection was indeed a proof to the disciples who saw with their own eyes Christ resurrected, but to you and me, we must first have faith in God and receive His Word the Bible, before we can accept the resurrection as a fact. This is at the heart of the presuppositional method. Many liberals do deny the resurrection is a fact, because they deny the gospels to be accurate accounts. This is why I first presented the two anxioms as the common ground that must exist between the evangelist and the seeker.

I said that the evangelist would have to "pass over and move on," not the apologist. This is why we ought to be well-versed both in the gospel and also in apologetics so that if you have to "pass over him" as an evangelist, you do not have to do so literally if you are also an apologist. But the point that I sought to make was that we should not waste too much time with skeptics, but first concentrate on those who already accept the two anxioms. This is especially true in Third World countries where most people do not have so much education and pride so as to reject the two anxioms of the Christian Faith.

Here is Calvin on Acts 17:24.

24. God, who hath made the world. Paul’s drift is to teach what God is. Furthermore, because he hath to deal with profane men, he draweth proofs from nature itself; for in vain should he have cited testimonies of Scripture. I said that this was the holy man’s purpose, to bring the men of Athens unto the true God. For they were persuaded that there was some divinity; only their preposterous religion was to be reformed.

I take it Calvin would not walk away from someone who did not share his axioms. ?

What about those who presuppose the Book of Mormon or the Quaran to be the word of God? How do we avoid the "my book is God's word"..."no, my book is God's word" dilemma?

If we are all presupposing our respective texts, where does the stalemate end?

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Joel Batts
Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) - Memphis, TN

I believe that many would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. - CS Lewis

How would this verse fit in?

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Anthony D'Arienzo
Sunday School Teacher
Hope Reformed Baptist Church:
Medford, N.Y.

that is precisely my issue with some presuppers. I don't see the reformed tradition defending the faith with a casual, those are your presuppositions. These are mine. Have a nice day. My quote from Calvin has not been answered yet. anyone?

Mormons accept the Bible as inspired by God "insofar as it is correctly translated". When witnessing to Mormons, you can show that the Book of Mormon and their beliefs contradict the Bible.

I heard from Greg Bahnsen that Islam's teaching of the transcendence of God leads to the conclusion that God cannot reveal Himself to man. Is Bahnsen correct?

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Curt Hayashida
member, Community Bible Church (Non-denominational)
Vallejo, CA

I'd say so. I asked the classic question, "Can Allah create a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" and I got a "yes" in return. One Muslim tried to explain Allah in the sense that those living in the "second dimension," i.e. those things that can only perceive length and width, can't imagine a three-dimensional world. Then he said that Allah is above us in the same way.

So, I then asked him what we can understand about Allah, and I am awaiting a response.

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Ben Maas. . . . .Facebook
In college, attending First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Ada, OH, and
Belle Center Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCNA), Belle Center, OH
When at home, attending Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC), Mansfield, OH

“Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.”
-Jonathan Edwards-