Jeff Durbin from Apologia Church knocks it out of the park with a reasoned defense of the faith and with a great presentation of the Pre-supositional Apologetic.
Archive for Philosophy
The Philosophical Naturalism Hermeneutic
The filo….sop…nat….what!?! Yes, the Philosophical Naturalism Hermeneutic. Let me explain the terms and why I am stringing them together.
Philosophical (the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence)
Naturalism (an assumption that says everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted)
Hermeneutic (a method or theory of interpreting the Bible)
The Philosophical Naturalism Hermeneutic is the method by which many modern professing Christians interpret the text of Scripture. Philosophical Naturalism is the assumption by which evolutionary proponents interpret scientific evidence. It is an assumption that there is no God therefore supernatural and spiritual causes are not permitted.
World Views (Presuppositional Apologetics)
Every human being’s beliefs about the world has a starting point, a line of reasoning that has a beginning. Most have not even taken the time to think about the fact that they have this starting point, but everyone, no one excluded, has a starting point to all lines of reasoning. Most assume their starting point without giving it any thought.
This starting point can be described as a world view. A world view is comprised of a set of presuppositions and is controlled by an ultimate authority. Some will insist that they have no world view. They may say that they are completely objective and weigh all the evidence for all arguments and choose the one with the most evidence. This may sound good at face value, but the belief that we need to except the possibility of everything and weigh all the evidence is in itself a world view and a rather absurd and self-refuting one at that. They will say they are completely objective but by their own definition of their world view they exclude all world views that they don’t believe to be objective therefore they are not being completely objective. These same people often claim to be tolerant but won’t tolerate a view they deem intolerant. This means they will only tolerate those that share their world view of tolerance. This is very intolerant and therefore refutes their own world view. No human being is completely objective. All approach the evidence with a set of presuppositions and an ultimate authority. As a Christian I do not claim to be completely objective or tolerant. I will not even waste any time examining evolution to see if it might be true or has enough evidence to support it. Any world view outside of the Bible has to argue for itself by borrowing presuppositions from the Biblical world view therefore I have no reason to even entertain it. (I will expound on this further in the article)
