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Greg L. Bahnsen

Greg L. Bahnsen Biography

Philosopher

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“A person cannot have it both ways regarding his final standard or ultimate reference point. He presupposes and reasons either according to the authority of God or according to some other authority. Attempting to be neutral about God's ultimate authority in determining what we know is a result of a bad attitude toward God's ultimate authority. It is a way of saying that one does not really need the work of Christ to save him in his reasoning.”

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“The defense of freedom as the ideal for civil legislation or social relations ironically results in the loss of that very freedom. The tolerance of absolutely all opinions in a society will lead to relativism and to the destruction of the society as a body of men who relate by recognized laws to each other; for that reason the government requires its teachers to vow that they are not committed to its overthrow and passes laws against sedition. Just where freedom should begin and be curtailed, then, is an unavoidable problem for the liberty ideal. And it cannot be resolved without applying the principles of an underlying moral system.”

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Book:Homosexuality, A Biblical View
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“Therefore, the authority of Christ and His word, rather than intellectual autonomy, must govern the starting point and method of his apologetics, as well as its conclusion. He challenges the philosophical adequacy of the unbeliever's worldview, showing how it does not provide the preconditions for the intelligibility of knowledge and morality. His case for Christianity, then, argues from the impossibility of the contrary. From beginning to end, both in his own philosophical method and in what he aims to bring about in the unbeliever's thinking, the Christian apologist reasons in such a way "that in all things Christ might have the preeminence" (Col. 1:18).”

ApologeticsChristian ApologeticsChristian PhilosophyPresuppositional ApologeticsPresuppositionalism
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“Van Til's insight… was that antitheism actually presupposes theism. To reason at all, the unbeliever must operate on assumptions that actually contradict his espoused presuppositions — assumptions that comport only with the Christian worldview. The unbeliever's efforts to be rational and to find an intelligible interpretation of his experience are, then, indications that he bears a knowledge of God the Creator within his heart, though struggling to suppress it (as the Bible itself speaks of sinful man's condition)”

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“Apologetics involves a conflict over ultimate authorities — that is, a conflict over our presuppositions or final standard. What should be the source of a person's presuppositions? For the unbeliever, it will be some authority for reasoning other than the word of God, while for the believer it is God's revelation.”

Christian ApologeticsChristian PhilosophyPresuppositional ApologeticsPresuppositionalismChristian Epistemology
Book:Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis
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“Now if the teaching of Moses is inspired and Deuteronomy 13 and 18 tell you that future revelations must be judged according to previous revelation, and if the alleged future revelation of the Quran conflicts with the previous revelation of Moses, who has to go? By their own logic who has to go? The Qur'an has to go. Those who advocate the worldview of the Qur'an are not able to live according to their own worldview, there's this inconsistency”

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“the argument is, if God is all-good and God is all-powerful how could any of these things happen, there's an inconsistency in your Christian worldview. The intellectual answer is there is no logical inconsistency because not only do we believe God is all-good and all-powerful, we also believe there's a morally sufficient reason for everything God does. That's one of our presuppositions, as Abraham said, shall not the Judge of all the earth do right [Genesis 18:25]. We believe that everything God does He does well for a good reason, that He is wiser than us, and even when things look tragic we know that God will bring good and His glory out of tragedy”

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“The task of the apologist is not simply to show that there is no hope of eternal salvation outside of Christ, but also that the unbeliever has no present intellectual hope outside of Christ. It is foolish for him to build his house on the ruinous sands of human opinion, instead of the verbal rock of Christ (Matt. 7:24-27). He needs to see that those who suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness inescapably "become vain in their reasoning… Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools" (Rom. 1:21-22). Their opposition to the faith amounts to no more than a "knowledge falsely so called" (1 Tim. 6:20-21), by which they actually "oppose themselves" in ignorance (2 Tim. 2:23, 25).”

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“In the nature of the case, God is the final authority. But if God's authority must be authorized or validated by the authority of human reasoning and assessment, then human thinking is more authoritative than God Himself — in which case God would not have final authority, and indeed would no longer be God. The autonomous man who insists that God can only be accepted if His word first gains the approval or agreement of man has determined in advance that God will never be acknowledged as God (the final authority).”

Christian ApologeticsChristian Epistemology
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“Imagine a person who comes in here tonight and argues 'no air exists' but continues to breathe air while he argues. Now intellectually, atheists continue to breathe - they continue to use reason and draw scientific conclusions [which assumes an orderly universe], to make moral judgments [which assumes absolute values] - but the atheistic view of things would in theory make such 'breathing' impossible. They are breathing God's air all the time they are arguing against him.”

PersonsReasonGodUseValuesUniverseReligiousViewsMoralImagineImpossibleAirAtheismTheoryJudgmentDrawsAbsolutesPhilosophicalAssumingAtheistBreatheArguingConclusionBreathingMinistersJudgementTonightOrderlyAtheisticCore ValuesApologeticMoral JudgmentAnti Atheist
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“The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God (which, we must note, was addressed specifically to perennial problems in political morality), then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man (or men) — the standard of self-law or autonomy.”

IfsMenSelfFormLawEvilForceExpressionStandardsFunctionVainGuidanceGood And EvilEthicalAutonomyBrutesCommonwealthAutonomousMagistratesBrute Force
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“It is important for the apologist who desires to be obedient to the Word of God in defending the faith to pay special attention to the fact that throughout Scripture, God's veracity is not defended, but accepted from the outset on His authority. Unless we have more wisdom than that contained in the revelation of God, we should take the same attitude.”

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