Apologetics: Presuppositional Apologetics

[It’ll be well worth your time to watch all three videos.]

Professor Oliphint prefers the term “covenantal apologetics,” and I agree. “Presuppositional apologetics” is not a particularly helpful term, but it is the term popularly used.

Here’s the idea: ultimately, the truth of scripture and the claims of Christianity are axiomatic for Christians. We can refute arguments against Christianity, but we cannot prove that Jesus was resurrected or that the scriptures are inspired.

We might call these matters of “faith,” but it’s even more exact to say that these are fundamental assumptions of the Christian worldview that cannot be proven. However, the Christian worldview created by such beliefs explains the world far better than any other worldview.

How is that? Well, the dominant Western view other than Christianity is naturalism, that is, that there is nothing but nature and science — and every question that has an answer is answered by science — or one day will be.

Okay. Then what is the purpose of humanity? The scientific answer is: We evolved at random and serve no purpose at all.

And so what value does humanity have? Again, no value at all.

Then why is it wrong to kill other people? Oh, well, evolution does not provide a system of ethics. In fact, if we were to think of evolution as an ethical system, it would be pretty awful since it would lead to sterilizing the least highly evolved. This is the system tried by Nazis, whose choice of what is good and bad was wrong according to nearly all people — although very justifiable by evolutionary standards. From a Darwinian perspective, why wouldn’t one gene pool (Germans) seek to exterminate gene pools they consider inferior and competitive for limited resources (such as Jews and Gypsies)? That’s survival of the fittest. The fittest have the best armies.

Well, because it’s wrong — except naturalism offers no answer for why it’s wrong. None.

In fact, naturalism — being inevitably built on evolution — offers no answer for why human life should have more value than, say, ants — which is why some people can actually see  no difference.

In short, absent Christian understandings (axioms, presuppositions, worldview), the world is meaningless and people have no value. And yet this is impossible — too horrible to even contemplate.

Therefore, Christianity is true. All else is false.