jwright82
Puritan Board Professor
i have had some recent apologetical engagments that are real good practical applications of presuppositional apologetics, and i thought it might be helpful to share them. people who may not understand presuppositionalism might better understand it by seeing it practically worked out.
1. my old boss came to me and said he had heard an atheist speaking and claimed this atheist said some things that made sense. the particular example he gave was on the book of Jonah, he said it was far fetched to believe a man survived 3 days in the belly of a fish. my response to him was that we needed to back up a bit logically and examine his assumptions when reading the text. i asked him if he really thought that the God of the Bible couldn't preform such a miracle, however far fetched it seemed? he agreed that i was in fact right and the the atheist was wrong.
2. a friend asked me how i could be a christian if the Bible condemns homosexuality? my response to her was that she was making a bad assumption in saying that the Creator, by virtue of who he is, cannot make moral demands of his creatures. she agreed that the Creator could do that but that he wouldn't make such a demand, for whatever reason. i asked by what authority was she making this claim about God and she said it just made sense to her. i responded that it made sense to hitler to commit genocide but that didn't make him right. this drew a blank for her and she ended the conversation.
3. a similar conversation happened with another person over feminism. he thought the Bible was incorrect because it didn't teach equality, as he understood it. i layed out for him the Biblical teaching of equality and showed that sexism was not what the Bible taught. he said i was wrong and that any teaching that didn't meet his definition of equality was wrong. i asked him why he assumed that he could tell God what to do? if God chose to make male and female equal in essence, both made in the image of God, but to establish a hierarchy, male headship in church and home, wouldn't that be well within His rights as the Creator? he said i was still wrong so i pressed him to justify his moral assumption.
he said he was an evolutionist and he attempted to use that theory to back up his claim, this appears to be a popular desire among evolutionists today. he claimed that evolutionary theory could justify his assumption. i pointed out the age old problem that you cannot logically move from an "is" statement to an "ought" statement. just because murder is the killing of an inoccent person does not mean you ought not to do it. this is called the naturalistic fallacy. also i asked him how he knew that morality wouldn't evolve out of the current moral sentament, as he understood it? he didn't have any answers to my questions and i pointed more logical problems with his assumptions, too many to mention here but i hope this gets the point across.
i hope this will be helpful to anyone and i welcome anyone of any school of apologetical thought to give any practical examples they might have so we can all help eachother.
1. my old boss came to me and said he had heard an atheist speaking and claimed this atheist said some things that made sense. the particular example he gave was on the book of Jonah, he said it was far fetched to believe a man survived 3 days in the belly of a fish. my response to him was that we needed to back up a bit logically and examine his assumptions when reading the text. i asked him if he really thought that the God of the Bible couldn't preform such a miracle, however far fetched it seemed? he agreed that i was in fact right and the the atheist was wrong.
2. a friend asked me how i could be a christian if the Bible condemns homosexuality? my response to her was that she was making a bad assumption in saying that the Creator, by virtue of who he is, cannot make moral demands of his creatures. she agreed that the Creator could do that but that he wouldn't make such a demand, for whatever reason. i asked by what authority was she making this claim about God and she said it just made sense to her. i responded that it made sense to hitler to commit genocide but that didn't make him right. this drew a blank for her and she ended the conversation.
3. a similar conversation happened with another person over feminism. he thought the Bible was incorrect because it didn't teach equality, as he understood it. i layed out for him the Biblical teaching of equality and showed that sexism was not what the Bible taught. he said i was wrong and that any teaching that didn't meet his definition of equality was wrong. i asked him why he assumed that he could tell God what to do? if God chose to make male and female equal in essence, both made in the image of God, but to establish a hierarchy, male headship in church and home, wouldn't that be well within His rights as the Creator? he said i was still wrong so i pressed him to justify his moral assumption.
he said he was an evolutionist and he attempted to use that theory to back up his claim, this appears to be a popular desire among evolutionists today. he claimed that evolutionary theory could justify his assumption. i pointed out the age old problem that you cannot logically move from an "is" statement to an "ought" statement. just because murder is the killing of an inoccent person does not mean you ought not to do it. this is called the naturalistic fallacy. also i asked him how he knew that morality wouldn't evolve out of the current moral sentament, as he understood it? he didn't have any answers to my questions and i pointed more logical problems with his assumptions, too many to mention here but i hope this gets the point across.
i hope this will be helpful to anyone and i welcome anyone of any school of apologetical thought to give any practical examples they might have so we can all help eachother.
