Presuppositionalism

Presuppositionalism

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3116-presuppositionalism

the concept of evidence requires the worldview described in the Bible, the nature and character of God.
The scientific method is grounded by induction.
Induction is justified by the uniformity in nature.
The atheist worldview cannot account for the uniformity in nature other than to say it’s ‘just so’.
The atheist cannot account for the preconditions of intelligibility (the reliability of memory, the reliability of sense perception, the invariant abstract universal laws of logic/mathematics, objective morality, and again, induction).
The atheist can count, but he cannot account for counting.
“While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night Shall not cease.” - Genesis 8:22
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” - Mark 1:15

Naturalism cannot ground fundamentally anything. That is: 1. Existence itself 2. The meaning of life  3. The value of human life 4. Moral values 5. Knowing what is objectively ( ontologically) true in regards to reality 
6. Sound reasoning 7. Logic 8. Intelligibility 9. Mind and consciousness 10. Uniformity in nature. 

Atheists cannot ground fundamentally anything, that is:  1. Existence itself: Being cannot come from non-being or non-existence. Nor can there be an infinite series of events in the past. 2. The meaning of life: There can be no fundamental meaning if there is no God which made us for a specific purpose and if our lives will cease to exist one day. 3. The value of human life: Without God, there can be no intrinsic, sanctity, or inherent value of human life, there can be no measure to distinguish why a cockroach is less valuable than man. 4. Moral values: Atheists also presuppose that objective moral values exist - like it is wrong to torture and kill babies for fun. But atheists cannot consistently claim that any moral values exist if there is no prescribing higher entity that establishes binding "ought to be's". 5. Knowing what is objectively ( ontologically) true in regards to reality: If there is no God, there is no reference point for us to know what is ultimately true and real. It can be anything. We can exist in a matrix, we can be the experiment of an alien life form outside the universe. 6. Sound reasoning: If our biological features, and more importantly our cognitive machinery evolved from some evolutionary forces of nature, how can we trust our brain and our thinking? the very thinking, belief, or trust in naturalism which are the products of blind or unguided forces of nature?? 7. Logic: Objective logic cannot be based on our subjective minds, a non-static universe, or immaterial abstractions outside of a mind. 8. Intelligibility: To be ultimate and singular means to be the source of all possibilities. How can we establish what is possible and impossible without referencing God? 9. Uniformity in nature: In order to understand our existence, we need to presuppose an orderly universe, governed by physical laws.  Atheists have to assume it without having an explanation why it is so.  An atheist has no answers to why the initial conditions, and why physical laws exist at all. They have to presuppose intelligibility of the created order without having a justification of that state of affairs.

The very demand to provide evidence of God's existence requires the presupposition of uniformity of nature, a logical mind, and sensory perceptions that we can trust. And all three require God, which secures what is possible and impossible, and therefore, is required to provide continuity and stability of the universe. Logic and consciousness can not come from matter. In a recent YouTube stream, an atheist claimed that the brain is the hardware, and the mind, the software. Then I asked: Can the hardware give rise to the software? He immediately became aware that he shot in his own worldview, and tried to change the subject. We also need to have senses that can perceive the natural world. While naturalists claim that evolution is an adequate explanation, I think it's not. There are many things that have to work in an interdependent manner and have to originate all at once. In order to see, we need the eye, the optic nerve, and the visual cortex in the brain. if one is missing no deal.

Atheists cannot ground fundamentally anything, that is: 

1. Existence itself
2. The meaning of life 
3. The value of human life
4. Moral values
5. Knowing what is objectively ( ontologically) true in regards to reality 
6. Sound reasoning
7. Logic
8. Intelligibility
9. His mind and consciousness
10. Uniformity in nature. 

1. Existence cannot come from non-existence. Thomas Aquinas: By definition, a non-contingent effect causes itself.  These effects are not observed.  If an effect caused itself, it would need to have existed prior to itself.

2. There can be no fundamental meaning, if there is no God which made us for a specific purpose, and if our lives will cease one day to exist. If that is so, the day we cease to exist, even IF there is a God, what we did during our lifetime, will ultimately cease to have a fundamental meaning. It is just a momentary transition out of oblivion into oblivion.

3. Without God, there can be no intrinsic, sanctity, or inherent value of human life, there can be no measure to distinguish why a cockroach is less valuable than man.  

4. Atheists also presuppose that objective moral values exist - like it is wrong to torture, rape, and kill babies for fun. But atheists cannot consistently claim that any moral values exist if there is no prescribing higher entity that establishes binding "ought to be's". 

5. Truth can be defined as that which corresponds with reality. However, how can we know what reality is?  If there is no God, there is no reference point for us to know what is ultimately true and real. It can be anything. We can exist in a matrix, we can be the experiment of an alien life form outside the universe, we can be the byproduct of a multiverse. Maybe solipsism is true. Whatever. We are left with the sober recognition that our lives are ultimately absurd. That leads to nihilism. 

6. Atheists cannot trust their reasoning and have no justification for it. J. B. S. Haldane, British Evolutionist. “If my mental processes are determined wholly by motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true – and hence I have no reason for believing that my brain is composed of atoms.”  Atheists assume their senses and ability to reason are accurately digesting the information around us. C.S. Lewis: Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true?  But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course, I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. 

7. What about the laws of logic? Atheists have to assume them. Which is another presupposition most all humans hold. Non-material entities such as objective truth is a myth since even the most basic principles of logic are all produced by a random accident, as is so the brain.

8. Intelligibility: Russell’s “naïve realism” (things are what they seem) is the idea that our sensory perceptions of color, shape, hardness, etc. drive our concept of reality, and produced the pursuit of reality: Physics. Yet they are not the things of physics, which goes deeper than the cosmetics of the object being observed, and shows that things are not “what they seem”.

9. The atheist mind recognizes only “Natural” and Material” effects, rejecting everything that cannot be proven empirically or forensically.  So the Atheist mind must also reject the existence of a mind, since such an intangible cannot be proven to exist empirically or forensically.

10. In order to understand our existence, we need to presuppose an orderly universe, governed by physical laws.  Atheists have to assume it without having an explanation why it is so.  An atheist has no answers to why the initial conditions, and why physical laws exist at all. They have to presuppose intelligibility of the created order without having a justification of that state of affairs.  If man could not be assured that the future will be like the past, that subsequent events will sustain a causal relation to previous states of affairs, the basis for any science would be lost. Initially, he would appeal to past uniformity; yet this fails to answer the question. What right have we to read the past into the future? Then the autonomous thinker might observe that we all assume this uniformity and even his critic relies on such a crucial axiom; however, this observation simply fails to justify the autonomous man’s axiom and only reiterates his uncritical dependence on it.

The mere fact that we are able and capable, as rational conscious beings to appreciate the physical world, its beauty, and variety from the macro to the micro is evidence of a creator. In order to evaluate evidence, one has to presuppose the following conditions: 

1. The uniformity of nature 
2. The ability to process the information ( using the laws of logic ) 
3. Reliability of our senses 
 

1. The uniformity of nature
We assume that the universe is orderly and obeys the physical laws that are the same over time and space. Unordered random stochastic events would not be able to give rise to a precise finely-tuned expansion rate of the universe, ( the cosmological constant is finely adjusted in 1 to 10^123) and there would be no universe.  

Paul Davies: This cosmic order is underpinned by definite mathematical laws that interweave each other to form a subtle and harmonious unity. The laws are possessed of an elegant simplicity, and have often commended themselves to scientists on grounds of beauty alone. Yet these same simple laws permit matter and energy to self-organize into an enormous variety of complex states. If the universe is a manifestation of rational order, then we might be able to deduce the nature of the world from "pure thought" alone, without the need for observation or experiment. On the other hand, that same logical structure contains within itself its own paradoxical limitations that ensure we can never grasp the totality of existence from deduction alone.

Why is there order in the universe? Why is it not random, stochastic, and unordered? Why are there laws of nature, that impose how matter behaves? If it is not God which is ultimate from which everything else derives and depends, being at the bottom of all reality, a necessary uncaused eternal being, the source of all possibilities who imposes what can and can not be, happen and occur or not, then, if anything, movement and change would emerge without deriving from an ultimate source at all, that change would be chaotic, random, without stability, unintelligible, and stochastic. The laws of physics could, and actually would have to pop up randomly, but could also cease to exist and then pop up again, in an unorderly frequency. Only a powerful creator is a possible rational explanation that can impose order in all created beings, and finely tune the universe and adjust its conditions that permit life. God upholds all things by His power (Heb. 1:3: "sustaining all things by His powerful word").  God maintains the universe, therefore, we are justified to believe that it is orderly and uniform. Why are there intelligent human beings that can take knowledge of the created order, rationalize it, take notice, discover it, observe it, think about it, and give praise? The universe could be simply lifeless and nobody would take notice of its existence. It would simply be an accidental product of unknown physical forces.

Paul Davies: an explanation of some phenomenon in terms of physics presupposes the validity of the laws of physics, which are taken as given. But one can ask where these laws come from in the first place.  Sooner or later we all have to accept something as given, whether it is God, or logic, or a set of laws, or some other foundation for existence.

2. The ability to process the information ( using the laws of logic )
Logical absolutes exist. Logical absolutes are conceptual by nature, and not dependent on space, time, physical properties. They are not the product of the physical universe (space, time, matter) because if the physical universe ceases to exist, logical absolutes will still exist. Logic is a process of the mind. Logic provides the framework for logical thought. A mind with the capability of logical thought cannot be the product of matter. A chemical state of the physical brain leads to another physical state of the physical brain but has never demonstrated to produce consciousness with the capability of rationality, rational thought, logic, and laws of logic which are independent of physical things. A chemical state of the physical brain leads to another physical state of the physical brain without requiring thoughts. So why would the brain produce consciousness, thoughts, and logic in the first place? The mind, and logical thought cannot be emergent properties of physical matter, and the brain. Logic depends on the existence of a mind. Logic is abstract. It is not a causal agent. 

3. Reliability of our senses 
We believe and presuppose that our senses are basically reliable and we can draw correct conclusions about the universe.  Unless the source of our own reliable senses is not as well reliable, unchanging in nature, how can chaos, and unreliability be the source of reliable senses?  We are warranted to expect that our memory and senses are reliable since they have been designed by God as stated in Scripture. God created us in His image, and since he is the supreme intelligence and all-knowing,  we are justified to believe that we have been created by God, able to gain knowledge and to reason. If our thoughts were chaotic and random, not using logic and rationality, we would not be able to make sense of anything that happens in the universe at all. 


From the book: Every thought captive: 
When we think even for a moment about Genesis 1:1, we recognize that the act of creation forms a basic division. On the one hand there is the One who created, and on the other hand, there is that which He created. Consequently, a distinction is made between God the Creator and God’s creation. We shall call this the “Creator-creature distinction” for it is a concept which must be explored further and to which reference will often be made. This distinction between the Creator and His creatures must never be forgotten nor set aside for even a moment for it is indispensable to the development of biblical apologetics.

God is not a dependent "sugardaddy”:
He is the all-powerful Creator and constant sustainer of all things. Romans 11:36 speaks to this effect:

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Col. 1:17).

We will see in the lessons which follow that the recognition of this distinction between the independent God and dependent creation is one of the fundamental differences between Christians and non-Christians. Christians strive to see everything in light of creation’s dependence on God while the non-Christian tries to deny creation’s dependence. As strongly as it may be denied by some non- Christians, in one way or another, every person who has not trusted in Christ for salvation fails to account for the Creator-creature distinction and somehow puts God and His creation in mutual dependence on each other and ascribes to creation a degree of independence. With all the diversity of opinion among non-Christians, this is one uniting factor: the Creator-creature distinction is denied.

As creation cannot exist apart from God, it cannot be silent of God. The more fully one apprehends any fact of the universe, the more it will reveal God and His will to him.

Special Revelations of God
God has for various reasons always seen fit to accompany His revelation in all of creation with special revelations of Himself. In the garden of Eden, He spoke audibly to Adam about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To the patriarchs, God disclosed Himself in dreams, appearances, and visions. To Moses, God spoke in a burning bush and on tablets of stone.To the apostles, He spoke through the life and words of Jesus, His Son. For our time, God has spoken by the inspired Scriptures.

The Dependence of Man On God
The Psalmist directs us to remember who we are with these words: 

Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves (Ps. 100:3).

Man is no less dependent on God than is the rest of creation for he himself was created by God and is sustained by Him. Man is the crown of God’s creative activity, but he is still a creature and is returning to dust (Gen. 2:7). “In Him [God] we live and move and exist’’ (Acts 17:28) and apart from God we are nothing.

Man’s knowledge is dependent The Psalmist puts it this way:

In thy light we see light (Ps. 36:9).

Apart from God’s light of revelation in creation and in Scripture, we can never know light. God knows all and it is upon His knowledge that we must depend if we ourselves are to know. Any true understanding which men have is derived either intentionally or unintentionally from God. Men do actually think, yet true knowledge is dependent on and derived from God’s knowledge as it has been revealed to man.

Because man chose to think himself independent of God the whole creation was cast into sin. In many respects, however, the redeeming work of Christ is the restoration of men and the world back to the original state in which they were first created.

When turning from God, the unbeliever asserts with absolute certainty that the biblical distinction between the Creator and His creature is false; he therefore puts on the mask of absolute certainty. Yet, when turning from God, the unbeliever is left in the postion of having no solid ground for knowledge and must therefore wear the mask of total uncertainty.

My comment: We see that all the time, when atheists claim to be atheists and agnostics. They reject the God of the Bible, but had no alternative explanation of our existence, and say " We don't know".

Certainty is impossible for the non-Christian since he has rejected the only source of true knowledge and is left to finite speculation. He may say that we cannot be sure of what we think we know or that we may arrive
only at “probable knowledge.” Such a stance may seem less presumptuous on the surface, but it is actually a statement of absolute certainty as well as total uncertainty.

“It is absolutely certain that there are no absolute certainties.”

Since the unbeliever has not examined all the possible evidence for God’s existence, he cannot be absolutely certain that He does not exist. This does not mean, however, that the unbeliever may safely claim that God’s existence is uncertain. In taking this stance of agnosticism, he is thrown into the same dilemma as the atheist. The unbeliever holds this view of total uncertainty while ignoring that agnosticism necessarily involves the absolute certainty that God has not made Himself known in such a way as to demand recognition and submission from all men. The agnostic is absolutely certain that God’s existence is uncertain.

The claim of absolute certainty is made, for instance, when the non-Christian says that the world is in some sense orderly and understandable. He is absolutely certain that the order he discerns is in reality actually there. Yet, the non-Christian is faced with the fact that he has not investigated and cannot investigate the entire external world in such a way as to avoid total uncertainty. The presence of the unknown calls into question all that the unbeliever claims to know. Total uncertainty regarding the external world often involves the notion that the world does not have order and is ruled by chance and makes no sense to man. It is obvious that even when the unbeliever denies the possibility of knowing the world in this fashion, he is making a statement of absolute certainty about the character of the world. He knows for certain that the world is of such a character that it is unordered and that it is a product of mere chance. Once again, the unbeliever is faced with the dilemma of being absolutely certain and totally uncertain at the same time.

My comment: The atheist must take the notion that the world is orderly and understandable as an axiom, without having a warrant for that. He does not know if this universe is a matrix, or a computer game performed by a 15 year old kid plaid from a parallel universe. Or that solipsism is true. That he is the only person with consciousness, while all other humans are pre-programmed robots. But even more than that, how can a man without God be even certain that his own consciousness is real, and not a programmed simulation from the outside? Maybe his inner consciousness and self-awareness is an illusion. He cannot know for certain, that its not, and must take it as an axiom that it is without warrant for it.

In sum, unbelievers cannot know anything for certain. Neither if there is a God, if the real world he lives in is real in the sense he understands it, and neither if his consciousness is singular, indivisible, and his own, rather than the product of something more fundamental, of which he has no knowledge of. In contrast:

1 Corinthians 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

Christians are able to know and follow the truth of God’s revelation and therefore produce a philosophy which is not according to independent human perspectives. Believers are actually able to develop a philosophy pleasing to God. The reason for this lies in the religious commitment at the base of the Christian point of view. After describing non-Christian philosophy as we have seen in Colossians 2:8, Paul goes on to reveal the nature of the religious commitment which is fundamental to Christian philosophy.

The Christian seeks to depend on God in all things so that he may handle all things according to this principle: . . .

(Col. 3:17) Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father

The notion of human dependence does not depend on itself for ultimate support. It rests on the solid ground of God and His revelation. When asked why he is dependent on God, the Christian will respond that he is commanded to be so by the revelation of God, and that Scripture is authoritative for the Christian because it is God’s Word. He will claim that he knows that the Bible is God’s Word by the testimony of the Holy Spirit and the redeeming work of Christ. There is no independent human choice underlying commitment to Christ. The Creator who speaks for Himself and His revelation is alone the ground on which the Christian faith stands.

Christians and non-Christians are involved in circularities; they are impossible to avoid when considering our most basic conviction. Yet, an important difference must be seen between them. Non-Christian circularity
consists of the attempt to justify t±ie groundless assumption of independence by independent thought and results from mans inability to do otherwise.

Christian circularity, however, consists of the recognition that nothing is more ultimate than the authority of God and His Word The former is the evidence of futile thought struggling to support itself. The latter is the proof of enlightened minds returning to the only one without need of further support, God the Creator of all. Despite the similarities, these differences form a great chasm between the two views of the world which is crossed only by the one touched by the regenerating grace of God.

Christian philosophy provides escape from the futility of the non-Christian dilemma. In Christ the basis for man’s certainity and the answer to his uncertainty is found. Christian philosophy is supported by the commitment to
dependence on God which rests on God and His revelation. Because God is seen as the source of all knowledge, the Christian does not face the problem of being irreconcilably certain and uncertain. To be sure, there is certainty and uncertainty in Christian philosophy but these are companions under the Lordship of Christ.

Resting our philosophy on God and His revelation means accepting as certain those things revealed. Unlike the non- Christian, the Christian’s certainty is not destroyed by what he does not know. God knows everything exhaustively and is therefore able to provide for man even in the face of his finiteness. So long as man depends on God’s revelation for understanding God, the world, and himself, he will know truly without fear of error.

There are matters which are beyond his comprehension and which have not been revealed by God. In such areas the Christian confesses uncertainty and trusts God’s wisdom and understanding.

Unbelievers are in the dilemma of absolute certainty and total uncertainty. Christians, however, find the solution to this difficulty by having dependent certainty and dependent uncertainty. We shall show how this solution relates to the Christian concept of God, the world, and man.

1. Regarding God
The Christian has dependent certainty about the existence and the character of God because he receives as true the revelation of God in Scripture. God has spoken and revealed Himself that He might be known by those who commit themselves to belief in His Son. Even so, the Christian has dependent uncertainty because he does not know everything about God.

While non-Christians have severed their relationship with God and have therefore fallen prey to the dilemma of God’s judgment, Christians have been reunited to God and have found in Him the confidence needed for certainty and the solution to their uncertainty.

My comment: In other words, Christians can be certain of their salvation, and forgiveness of sins, and find peace in their hearts. Atheists, on the other hand, must live in constant fear, and the uncertainty that God actually DOES exist, and that then, they will be judged according to their sins. Of course, they attempt the suppress the notion of this uncertainty, but nevertheless, it is something that from time to time is nagging in their minds, and results in unrest and cognitive dissonance.

The Myth of Neutrality
Hardly a day goes by when we do not hear someone say, “I just want to deal with the objective facts as they really are. I want to keep away from religious questions.” As well meaning as they may be, these non-Christians are far from being neutral. They simply fail to realize that even seeking neutrality is a rejection of Christ. He does not ask for “neutral honesty” for such a stance is just a disguised form of allegiance to independence. As Jesus said,
He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters (Matt. 12:30).

My comment: It is very common these days unbelievers to resort to the confession: " We don't know, and we are perfectly honest about that". If there were hundreds of possible statements, then claiming of not knowing which makes most sense could be justified.  In the quest of God, there are just two possible explanations. Either there is a God, or not. There is however a wealth of evidence, which can lead us to informed, well-justified conclusions.

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1810-its-not-justified-to-claim-ignorance-limited-causal-alternatives-for-origins-do-not-justify-to-claim-of-not-knowing#2991

As the image of God, the nonChristian knows God and His demands in his heart Though he denies it, every fact of creation speaks to him of God. Even the very words of the Christian speak to the awareness of God which never fully escapes him. Finally, we may communicate effectively with the non-Christians because the potential of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit is always present.

Biblical apologetics must maintain the Creator-creature distinction.
Christians must always remember when defending the faith that human reason is never to be treated as the ultimate or final authority. The goal of apologetics is to have men submit dependently to God and we must not seek to bring them to that point by encouraging the non-Christian to continue setting himself up as judge of the credibility of Christianity. All too often apologetics merely challenges the non-Christian to clean up some of the flaws in his supposed independent reason. Yet nowhere in Scripture are men told to sit as judges over the claims of Christ; they are consistently exhorted to forsake their foolish ways of rebellion and to acknowledge their total dependence on God.

Biblical apologetics seeks to communicate effectively and convince the non- Christian on the basis that he is God’s image and is aware of his creatureliness. fallen man is still the image of God and therefore knows God even though he refuses to acknowledge Him. Whenever we approach the non-Christian we may have confidence not because he is reasonable or logical. We may speak to him on the basis of what he is and what he already knows.

My comment: I have seen the reaction of atheists many times, claiming that it was arrogant from Christians saying that they knew that God exists, but was unwilling to acknowledge and surrender to him. Based on my experience, I don't know if that approach "works", or if it is  productive in a conversation with atheists.

The fall of man involved the entirety of man; all aspects of his personality were corrupted by sin. As a result, reason is not the judge of truth; only God can act as such a judge. Moreover, sin has so affected mankind that even rational abilities are not neutral. Christians seek to use their reason in dependence on God. Non-Christians seek to be independent in their thinking; there is no neutral ground on which to deal with unbelief. Human reason can be as much a hindrance as a help to faith in Christ As St. Augustine once said, “Believe that you may understand.” To rest our faith on independent reason is to rebel against God. Reason must rest on our faith commitment to Christ and our faith must rest on God alone.

The unbeliever is encouraged to act as if he were God and able to judge the question of God’s existence independently.

Many apologists operate on the assumption that it is possible for reflective unbelievers to see God in creation. The Scriptures, however, teach that all men, even the unreflecting, know the God of Scripture through creation.To
try to convince the unbeliever of the existence of a god of some undefined character, is to lead him away from what true knowledge of the God of Scripture he already has. For these reasons, to argue for the existence of God as Little has suggested is clearly contrary to the guiding principles of Scripture.

There are four possible ways of reacting to Jesus. He is either a liar, a lunatic, a legend ( a fictional character), or truly the one he claimed to be. In response to the notion that Jesus was a liar: Even those who deny his deity affirm that they think Jesus was a great moral teacher. They fail to realize those two statements are a contradiction. To the idea that Jesus was a lunatic: But as we look at the life of Christ we see no evidence of abnormality and unbalance we find in the deranged person. In response to the idea that Jesus’ claim of divinity is mere legend or that he was a fictional character after all: The legend theory does not hold water in the light of the early date of the Gospel manuscripts, extrabiblical testimonies, and the Shroud of Turin. The last alternative is that Jesus spoke the truth. 

The problem with much of the popular tactics used by many defenders of the faith today may be summed up as a problem of authority. The apologist must see clearly that the non-Christian is in need of forsaking his commitment to independence and should turn in faith to the authority of Christ.

If, however, trust in Christ is founded on logical consistency, historical evidence, scientific arguments, etc., then Christ is yet to be received as the ultimate authority. The various foundations are more authoritative than Christ Himself. To use yet another analogy, if belief in Christian truth comes only after the claims of Christ are run through the verification machine of independent human judgment, then human judgment is still thought to be the
ultimate authority (see Fig. 20).



In spite of all our efforts and our most profound arguments the unbeliever will not be won unless he is touched by God’s grace and is made willing to believe from his heart

Evangelism deals more with what we should believe and apologetics more with why we should believe. We may think of apologetics as extended evangelism for it seeks to defend and convince the unbeliever of the message of judgment and hope as it is presented in the gospel

Absolute unity and simplicity require no-thing outside because there is no "outside". It is all there is. If something "outside" added to that absolute unity/simplicity it is not absolute or ultimate. You can't add or divide from that absolute simplicity. It is the ultimate perfection that everything from eternity to eternity is perfect and lacking none. All possibilities are contained in it. It's actually an Anselmian thought...nothing greater (simpler) can be conceived. The theological name for this is GOD.

If the distinction Creator-creature is given up, then, as Paul Davies says: there remains the old problem about the end of the explanatory chain. However successful our scientific explanations may be, they always have certain starting assumptions built-in. For example, an explanation of some phenomenon in terms of physics presupposes the validity of the laws of physics, which are taken as given. But one can ask where these laws come from in the first place. One could even question the origin of the logic upon which all scientific reasoning is founded. Sooner or later we all have to accept something as given, whether it is God, or logic, or a set of laws, or some other foundation for existence. Thus "ultimate" questions will always lie beyond the scope of empirical science as it is usually defined. So does this mean that the really deep questions of existence are unanswerable? Davies continues: I now realize that it reflects my instinctive belief that it is probably impossible for poor old Homo sapiens to "get to the bottom of it all." Probably there must always be some "mystery at the end of the universe." But it seems worth pursuing the path of rational inquiry to its limit. Even a proof that the chain of inference is uncompletable would be worth knowing. Something of that sort has already been demonstrated in mathematics.

My comment: The origin of mathematical principles also requires an explanation.  

Darth Dawkins: I have a question. Since you don't believe in God then is anything impossible? ​And if so what imposes that? If nothing can be defended to be impossible then how can anything be intelligibile? ​If nothing is impossible then all propositions are of equal value and absurdity results. ​Can you please address the above. All of your statements here right now are meaningless unless you demonstrate that is some impossibility.

To be ultimate and singular means to be the source of all possibilities. How can you establish what is possible and impossible without referencing God?

https://corneliusvantil.wordpress.com/category/creator-creature-distinction/
Calvin recognized fully that if man is to have true knowledge of himself he must regard God as original and himself as derivative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmY4G0hWfoU

30/03
fundamentally absolute means unchanging
do you believe that anything at any given moment is changing? yes? then you have destroyed your worldview. If everything is changing, then nothing remains the same.
principle of continuity, vs principle of discontinuity.
properties and attributes that have always existed, and never cease to exist, are unchanging
independent, and outside of time-space continuum.
If nothing is changing at all, then there cannot be human intelligibility.
in order to talk about probability, some things have to be static, and others changing.
probabilistic assessment requires background information. It requires what is static, and what is dynamic, and does change.
what is it that is fundamental
God is unconditionally nondependent. will be considered to be what is divine. It is either personal or impersonal.
God cannot be evaluated probabilistically.
Either God necessarily exists or does not exist.
do you have a reason to believe that something is fundamental and absolute? No? There is nothing that secures and
what is ultimate? the source of all possibilities. How are the laws of nature real? If they are real, why is the future different than the past.
If what is fundamental and fundamental is not a mind, you cannot identify what it is.
overarching reason why things are the way it is.
atheism is incoherent and insane.
the very rejection of the claim that God has revealed himself through revelation is unsustainable.
Have they demonstrated that the facts that they are acquainted with do not need to reference God?
Do you believe that it is necessary to reference God as the precondition of all facts ? Do you positively believer that it is necessary to reference God?
The advocacy follows from the independence of God. So when they say no, they say that facts are independent of God, until shown otherwise. That is a de facto denial of God.
Its a category error.
The only way that we come to know what is absolute is when it is  a mind, that creates a world, so that we can know there is a creator.  
If they don't accept that. So then, when you don't believe what is fundamental is personal. If God does not secure the laws of physics, then they can be completely different.
Predictive capabilities are meaningless.
Chance can fulfill predictions
incoherence
all they care, is saying anything of why they dont have to believe in God. The preservation of human autonomy.
then you have no ground to object anything. because how do you establish that anything is impossible without referencing God.  why do you believe something without evidence?
do you have rationally evidential support
atheism is a dead corpse, a norman bates society.
everything that is temporal is indicative of what is eternal and absolute. 
if it's not God, then human rationality is destroyed. You cannot establish it in a deterministic world. It's basically a consequence of past events. Everything is shrouded in mystery. 
saying it's an emerging property of evolution is begging the question. it's incoherent. 

 
Falsify the Christian God
Can you falsify the Christian God? 
Do you have any truth claims that falsify the Christian God?
what is your objective statement that falsifies the Christian God?
Is God falsified in virtue of " I don't know? "

30/03
How are causal relations not in the necessity of God?

31/03 
Is God the necessary precondition for all facts?
All the facts that you are acquainted with, do not need to be referenced to God?
In the same sense, as a gun on the side of a dead man indicates a relation of the gun to the dead body, so do facts in the world relate to God.
Creation requires a creator. 
When I look at the facts that I am acquainted with 
institutes 
fundamental and absolute. either it is necessary or not. 
revelation of God and his self desclosure
certain things are regular. seeing is regular. seeing is the same as yesterday. a dog is the same as yesterday. If there are things that are regular, is the regularity real, or an illusion. intelligibility requires something that is regular 
if its a contingent state of affairs
whats fundamental could be impersonal. 
what is fundamental to reality is what imposes or secures that. 
any fact or collection of facts starts in the mind of God. 
or they are uncreated facts, which do not reference the mind of got, then they are just brute facts, then there is no explanation why they are the way they are. 
if the uniformity of nature is not something that emanates from God, then why does it exist at all? Is reality absolute in itself? Reality is an abstraction. It is the mental set of all particulars that exist. Within that abstract set, Laws, in order to exist, must be imposed. These continuities could just stop. 
Can a plurality of things be ultimate? Fundamental and ultimate are overlapping. Fundamental is singular. If they reject that it is singular but plural, then each of the members of the plurality exists independent of each other. 
A plurality ontologically cannot be ultimate. 

Zac king watch it. 
you cant interpret facts without a paradigm. We see everything through a lens. Either God is the background information or not. If not, then what is the background information? 
Gordon Stein , Greg Bahnsen youtube. 

02/04
God secures what is regular, what institutes, and secures what is regular. What is fundamental, is regular. Either it is a mind or not. 
Continuity and discontinuity. Christ is the same today, and yesterday. Without God, there can be no sequence at all. You cannot connect the dots. Unless what is fundamental to reality, is singular and fundamental, and a mind. incoherency and 
It seems philosophical, they experience, all the facts around us do not indicate God. They experience the lack of experience or positive affirmation of the existence of God. 
demonstrate: make an explanation more persuasive than another explanation
Christianity is true by the impossibility of the contrary
Axioms are fundamental. The Bible is the word of God, is true, the product of God's revelation. Knowledge truths can only come through scriptural propositions. 




http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/calhoun/socratic/Liu_resp_to_Collender.pdf
Argumentation presupposes knowledge, truth, logic, valid reasoning, etc.. Prove any precondition of intelligibility apart from the Christian God. Let’s start with logic. What are the laws of logic and where does logic come from? As Christians, we believe logic is a reflection of God's nature and God's thinking.

The Christian must from the very beginning presuppose the supernatural revelation of the Bible as the criterion of truth in order to know anything else because all human knowledge presupposes the existence of the Christian God.  

The only proof for the existence of God is that without God you could not prove anything.  Non-Christian worldviews are incoherent (inconsistent) in and of themselves and intelligible only because they borrow capital from the Christian worldview. The truth of the Bible is an axiom which as the presupposition cannot be proved or disproved. However it must be tested for logical consistency with other presuppositions or axioms within the worldview. The Christian worldview is analogous to an axiom or formal system. 

Presuppositionalism rests on a belief in the Bible as the source of truth because it is inspired by God. Meanwhile we believe in God because the Bible affirms it and the Bible is the source of truth. 

In Kant’s essay The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (1763), he applies this method to argue for the existence of God. According to him:  
Logic, science, ethics and all human knowledge are not meaningful apart from a preconditioning belief in the existence of God.

As creatures made in God’s image man cannot help but know God. It is of this revelation to man through “nature” and through his own constitution that Paul speaks of in Romans.

Answering Objections to Presuppositionalism
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/answering-objections-to-presuppositionalism/
All men are either in Adam, as their covenant head, or in Christ. There is no third place to be. As such, we reason, think, live, and act according to the principles entailed in our covenant status.

Christianity and Van Tillianism
https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/christianity-and-van-tillianism-2019-08/?fbclid=IwAR2Ab82vdoNHgmi6i9_F2MCeW0Gi0pZapC22UKU6ve35BiieWviwmpx85OI
Classical Trinitarian theism “is the foundation of everything else that we hold dear.” Why is the ontological Trinity the foundation for the correct interpretation of all facts? Because our triune God decreed all facts and created all facts and providentially controls all facts.

A SUMMARY OVERVIEW OF VAN TIL’S THOUGHT
Van Til’s doctrine of God is important because of his argument that the ontological Trinity is “foundational to everything else as a principle of explanation.” All human knowledge “rests upon the ontological Trinity as its presupposition.” Van Til is talking not only about religious knowledge. He explains, “True scientific certainty, no less than true religious certainty, must be based upon the presupposition of the ontological trinity.” The ontological Trinity is the final reference point required for interpreting all phenomena. In short, classical Trinitarian theism “is the foundation of everything else that we hold dear.” Why is the ontological Trinity the foundation for the correct interpretation of all facts? Because our triune God decreed all facts and created all facts and providentially controls all facts.

The distinction between this God and the creation is a crucial element in Van Til’s thought. This idea is fundamental to any truly Christian metaphysics. All non-Christian worldviews, according to Van Til, blur or deny the Creator-creature distinction. Even professing Christian views often fail to maintain this distinction as they should. Van Til argues, for example, that Roman Catholicism fails to teach the Creator-creature distinction, holding instead to the idea of “being in general.” He repeatedly finds fault with Thomas Aquinas on precisely this point, claiming that Aquinas borrowed the Aristotelian doctrine of the analogy of being. According to Van Til, Aquinas “reduces the Creator-creature distinction to something that is consistent with the idea of God and the cosmos as involved in a chain of being, with varying degrees of intensity.”

Among other things, understanding the Creator-creature distinction helps us understand the relationship between God’s knowledge and ours. Van Til’s explanation of God’s knowledge is fairly typical of classic Reformed theology. God is omniscient, and His knowledge of Himself and of all things is comprehensive. Man, on the other hand, even in his unfallen state, is a finite creature, so his knowledge is limited and partial. Man’s knowledge does not have to be comprehensive, however, in order to be true. In order for man’s knowledge of anything to be true, it must correspond to God’s knowledge. As Van Til explains, “Our ideas must correspond to God’s ideas.” Human knowledge, therefore, is “analogical.” Ultimately, man’s knowledge depends on divine knowledge. This means that “no fact in the world can be interpreted truly except it be seen as created by God.” This is what it means to say that all human knowledge “rests upon the ontological Trinity as its presupposition.”

What was the effect of the fall on man’s knowledge? According to Van Til, man’s mind has been corrupted, but “man’s constitution as a rational and moral being has not been destroyed.” The laws of logic, including the law of noncontradiction, being an expression of the nature of God, were not themselves destroyed, but “man’s ability to use them rightly was weakened.” In other words, “sin did not destroy any of the powers that God gave man at the beginning when he endowed him with his image.” If man had lost these natural powers, then he would no longer be responsible. Fallen human beings, therefore, “have good powers of perception, good powers of reasoning, etc.,” but Van Til insists that Christians must oppose those who say that fallen human reason “can and does function normally or near to normally even after the fall.”

This brings us to one of the most important elements of Van Til’s thought, which is his doctrine of the antithesis between believers and unbelievers. 

Since the fall, there are two classes of men: covenant keepers and covenant breakers. No one is neutral. Covenant breakers do not presuppose the ontological Trinity in their thinking, and thus they are blind with regard to the truth. The non-Christian sees all of reality through the lens of his own false worldview. Van Til uses the analogy of colored glasses to illustrate the point, saying, “The sinner has cemented colored glasses to his eyes, which he cannot remove.” These colored glasses distort the non-Christian’s view of everything he sees. This means he sees nothing correctly and therefore knows nothing correctly. This antithesis is seen most clearly in fallen man’s suppression of the knowledge of God. The wicked suppression of the knowledge of God affects man’s knowledge of everything.

Van Til emphasizes this point throughout his writings, saying that fallen man lacks true knowledge of anything. He is “blind with respect to the truth wherever the truth appears.” Also, no man “can have any true knowledge of anything except through the wisdom of Christ,” and it is anti-Christian to say otherwise. Fallen man “cannot, unless the scales be removed from his eyes, know anything truly about God or about anything else.” Because everything is created by God, “Not one single fact in this universe can be known truly by man without the existence of God.”

Van Til argues that even Calvin did not go far enough on this point. Calvin did not make it clear that “the natural man is as blind as a mole with respect to natural things as well as with respect to spiritual things.” Van Til explains: “Unless we maintain that the natural man does not know the flowers truly, we cannot logically maintain that he does not know God truly. All knowledge is interrelated.”

Atheists cannot ground fundamentally anything, that is:  1. Existence itself: Being cannot come from non-being or non-existence. Nor can there be an infinite series of events in the past. 2. The meaning of life: There can be no fundamental meaning if there is no God which made us for a specific purpose and if our lives will cease to exist one day. 3. The value of human life: Without God, there can be no intrinsic, sanctity, or inherent value of human life, there can be no measure to distinguish why a cockroach is less valuable than man. 4. Moral values: Atheists also presuppose that objective moral values exist - like it is wrong to torture and kill babies for fun. But atheists cannot consistently claim that any moral values exist if there is no prescribing higher entity that establishes binding "ought to be's". 5. Knowing what is objectively ( ontologically) true in regards to reality: If there is no God, there is no reference point for us to know what is ultimately true and real. It can be anything. We can exist in a matrix, we can be the experiment of an alien life form outside the universe. 6. Sound reasoning: If our biological features, and more importantly our cognitive machinery evolved from some evolutionary forces of nature, how can we trust our brain and our thinking? the very thinking, belief, or trust in naturalism which are the products of blind or unguided forces of nature?? 7. Logic: Objective logic cannot be based on our subjective minds, a non-static universe, or immaterial abstractions outside of a mind. 8. Intelligibility: To be ultimate and singular means to be the source of all possibilities. How can we establish what is possible and impossible without referencing God? 9. Uniformity in nature: In order to understand our existence, we need to presuppose an orderly universe, governed by physical laws.  Atheists have to assume it without having an explanation why it is so.  An atheist has no answers to why the initial conditions, and why physical laws exist at all. They have to presuppose intelligibility of the created order without having a justification of that state of affairs.

This is why nobody can deny the existence of  the Christian God:

Necessary Universal Truths
Personal God, (Creator, First Cause)  and the Logical chain of the Law of Causality (Every Effect Must have a Cause)  

Independent and Dependent Causes and effects:

The eternal Mind,
the external Cause of the universe,
Logical Laws - Conceptual truths.
Knowledge,and Science
The universe
The Cause of Life,
The Humans, Personal Temporary beings
The Mind,
Logic,
Truth,
Science,
Personality
Mind
Intentionality,
Language,  
information science theory
Communication, Sender,   Message, Receiver, Decoder,  Information,

Before we open our mouths and speak (communicate) we must recognize the existence of Logic and its laws, that we must use in order to express ourselves in sentences

We need universal Truths necessary for our existence:

- God, (Personal Creator, First Cause),
- Logic and the logical chain of the Law of Causality (Every effect must have a cause)
Law of Identity
Law of Non-Contradiction

Independent and dependent causes and effects:

Necessary Independent: God the Eternal Mind, and the External Cause of the Universe,

Dependent Causes and effects confirming the existence of God:

- The laws of logic - Absolute conceptual truths
- Knowledge and science
- The universe
- Life
- People, temporary personal beings
- Minds, logic, truth, science, intentionality, language, information science theory...

All Communications require:

The speaker intentionality who , sends a Message, sentences, the Recipient of the message
The process of Decoding, Sorting and Analyzing Information, Language (sentences, words, letters) takes place. Logical processing, establishing the Truth, storing information or conclusion.

Any language or mathematical expression or communication is impossible without the Laws of Logic:
Law of identity: A = A
The law of non-contradiction A is not B
The Law of Causality in Communication: Speaker, Sentence (Message) and Listener (receiver)

Conclusion:
No one can deny the necessity of Logic, derived from the existence of God, the Eternal Mind, and none of us can communicate rationally using Logic while denying Logic.

Logic and its laws are absolute, conceptual truths and do not require the existence of the universe, but they are absolutely necessary before any universe can exist.

Bahnsen: Presuppositional apologetics

Does the fact that ultimate principles are strictly incapable of external verification leave us with a guessing game at the beginning of our thinking?

What is justifiably believed and true? A true proposition asserts a certain state of affairs to be the case when in fact that is the state of affairs.  Justification is conferred on certain types of reasons (or warrants) because of the relatively high degree of success they have in engendering true belief. Because God has clearly revealed Himself to all men by means of nature, man’s own constitution, and Scripture, men do not begin with a mere guess about reality.  Only if Christianity were untrue (which it is not) would this dire conclusion follow.

All men as creatures of God have the same true metaphysical information and moorings, as well as justification for them (i.e., revelation from God Himself). So their intellectual endeavors do not begin with a “leap,” but rather they begin either in submissive obedience or rebellious disobedience. That men suppress and mishandle the revelation of God, thereby denying to themselves in one stroke the true metaphysic (beginning with the God of creation) and valid epistemology (resting upon divine revelation), fails to alter the fact that intellectual endeavors do not begin from a blank position of neutrality and make their first move by means of a guess. All men begin with genuine knowledge—true belief about the state of affairs and justification for that belief—and then proceed to use or misuse it.

Atheists commonly do want the quest of God's existence to reduce to a question of intellect or reason alone, excluding the fact that it has essentially to do with moral volition. Atheists implicitly hold that truth is obtainable and testable no matter what ethical condition the thinker is in. Hence they maintain that all disputes must be rationally resolvable, and a rational case for a philosophic position relies upon a valid chain of discursive argumentation.   BUT: When it comes to the fundamental question of Christian faith, the matter reduces to one of submission or rebellion to the authority of the revealed God.

Starting with presuppositions that cannot be proven
Every system must have some unproven assumptions, a starting point not antecedently established, with which reasoning begins and according to which it proceeds to conclusions. The unbeliever, as much as the believer, has a final authority to which he appeals in order to defend his world-view that he embraces. , When one is giving reasons for his fundamental outlook on reality and knowledge he will appeal to some personal authority: his own mind, an esteemed scholar, a group of thinkers, the majority opinion, or God. , All argumentation between non-Christian and believer must inevitably become circular, beginning and ending with some personal authority.

Since this is the case the Christian should not be ashamed of his admittedly dogmatical apologetic, a system of interpretation which starts “from above,” from the authoritative Word of the self-contained, triune God who speaks in self-attesting Scripture. The necessity, clarity, sufficiency, and authority of Scripture are correlative to that revelation of God in nature and man’s constitution. . The beginning of an argument is a personal authority not previously argued for, and there can be no higher or more reliable source of truth and validation than God, The truth of Scripture, then, is not established by the apologist’s use of external tests; rather the Word of God is self-attesting. The Bible is accepted on God’s own authority.

If a man’s mind really could be free of interpretative principles so that he could treat all “facts” as though they had no pre-interpretation inherent in them, then his interpretative activity could never get started or make contact with the “facts.” He would have a blank mind working on blank impressions. Furthermore, the place where a man goes to secure or look for evidence indicates a certain prejudice toward the answer expected to a question on his part from the very outset. Also, what a man even considers “factual” will be determined by his outlook or philosophy (e.g., the materialist and Buddhist will disagree from the start of an argument). Moreover we note that the very formulation and styling of an argument require that a man have his final conclusion in sight even from the outset in order that the argument be structured to move to the proper end; the predetermination of conclusion significantly governs the formulation of premises. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn clearly exhibits the non-objective character of science when it comes to foundational questions. He says that the scientist views the world through a model or arranging-picture; he has a paradigm that defines the scope and methodology of the science using it. The world becomes a totally new place when the paradigm is altered; even sense data and its interpretation are governed, qualified, and determined by the model.

In 1931 Kurt Gödel pulled the rug out from under the supposed neutrality of logic in the same way that Kuhn later made scientific or factual neutrality look suspicious. Gödel developed a theorem that demonstrated the impossibility of formulating a consistency proof for any system of logical calculus (with its signs and rules of inference) within that system.[6] Hence different systems of logic are selected for reasons other than objective logical argument.

Against this background it should come as no surprise that the Christian and unbeliever do not and cannot approach their differences with argumentative or philosophic neutrality. Even though the Christian and the non-Christian have the facts of the objective world in common, they have radically divergent interpretations of them. For the Christian all facts are pre-interpreted by God, created by God, and revelatory of God; they must be handled in such a way that glory is brought to God. But the non-Christian views these facts as meaningfully interpreted only by his own mind, as uncreated and free from God’s control, as ambiguous and contingent; he uses them to bring glory to man. Hence the Christian and non-Christian have different interpretative schemes.

One views logic as rules of thought implanted in man’s mind by the Creator; the other sees logic as the self-sufficient, self-authenticating tool of autonomous man’s reason. One founds logic in God; the other founds it in itself. The Christian places God’s authority above considerations of logical possibility or his own human use of logic; the unbeliever places abstract possibility above God. Since the fall of man was ethical in character (not metaphysical), the unregenerate and regenerate share the facts of the world and the rules of thought, but their interpretation and use of them are far from neutral. The Christian obediently submits all thoughts to the word of Scripture, but the non-Christian autonomously treats “logic” and “fact” as the final reference point of all truth.

The Christian takes God as an absolute, comprehensive, incorrigible authority, while the non-Christian absolutizes some aspect of his finite, temporal experience.

The non-Christian begins by assuming that God cannot clearly reveal himself in history or by means of human words, that He cannot demand every thought to be made subject to Christ; the Christian presupposes the very opposite. Self-consciousness and knowledge of facts and laws are impossible without God-consciousness according to the believer, but the unbeliever assumes the non-createdness of the facts as well as man’s mind and rejects the need to refer to God in any interpretative scheme. There is not one fact or law which is “neutral” to the Christian and non-Christian.

Scripture tells us that the non-Christian must always live in God’s world (i.e., upon Christian ground) and continually be confronted by God’s revelation within and without him. The non-Christian is not and cannot be consistent with his boasted autonomy and self-authority. It is the unbeliever’s inconsistency, wherein he knows the truth about God and depends upon it in his intellectual efforts (even while he denies it), that makes communication and argument with him by the Christian possible.


The Hopelessness of Autonomous Reasoning 
By epistemological autonomy is meant the ability to attain knowledge independent of God’s revelation and existence. The person who rejects the Word of God feels that he can find truth with his own powers of exploration, examination, and explanation. He thinks that personal knowledge of the world is attainable irrespective of God’s existence. For the self-styled autonomous man personal understanding need not make reference to the God-situation in order to justify or explain itself. It is assumed from the outset that the human mind is epistemologically self-sufficient. He purports to start simply with himself, his native abilities, the facts of experience, and the principles of logic in order to establish an interpretation of the world built up without reference to God or divine revelation. He takes it that his thinking is straightforwardly original and relies upon no a priori judgments as to fact. This epistemological stance needs to be unmasked.

Man must know something if he knows that he should reject revelational epistemology and dependence upon God—he thinks himself in a position to reject the absolute demand God makes upon his life and intellect. A person knows to reject an optical illusion only if he already knows the actual state of affairs; he can make a negative judgment only if he is also prepared to assert something positively. To reject revelational epistemology, then, is to commit yourself to defending the truth of autonomous epistemology.

Autonomous thinkers operate on the basis that the less a man knows the less certain he should be about his judgments; the inference is that outside of omniscience no man can find absolute truth. So what might the autonomous man substitute for infinite knowledge as grounds for claiming truthfulness in any of his predications? Is there any safeguard against delusion? Can even the simplest thing be known for sure?

Being dialectically strewn between haphazard guesses and the demand for omniscience, the autonomous man must push beyond “true belief” as his standard of “knowledge” and introduce the notion of justification as that which eliminates arbitrariness and provides a ground for asserting truthfulness in a belief. If someone has a good reason for his belief, then another person might have incentive to take that belief as true. However, different people are convinced by different kinds of reasons; what satisfies Jones may be completely inadequate according to Smith. A good case for a belief might persuade another to endorse it, but that does not come all the way up to “knowledge” (and relativism continues to threaten). At this point the autonomous man might be willing to lower his sights: after all, he says, no one can demand more than can be given.

It should be clear by this time that a self-styled autonomous thinker becomes an authority unto himself. Since the question of justifying conditions for a belief cannot be argued, the personal view of the autonomous man must simply be posited as the standard. Instead of advancing a good rational, scientific case for his position, the autonomous thinker must simply assume his own authority and assert his position. His mind is taken as the arbitrator and final point of reference; the justification-criteria, relevance-criteria, truth criteria, and verification-criteria are what they are simply because the autonomous man says so. An argument must begin somewhere, and so the autonomous man begins it with himself. The interesting thing here is that it is just such a dogmatic appeal to authority that often leads unbelievers to reject revelational-epistemology and its insistence on beginning with the Word of an absolute and authoritative God. Not tolerating an appeal to sheer authority, the autonomous thinker turns out also to make final appeal to sheer authority— his own!

When the Christian claims to justify his beliefs by reference to God’s authoritative revelation the autonomous man demands proof of God’s Word, in essence, demanding that God’s authority be subjected to the authority of the rational man. Obviously, if the Christian’s appeal to authority was illegitimate, so also is the autonomous man’s appeal to authority. He falls beneath his own criticism. Summing up the preceding considerations we note that the self-proclaimed autonomous thinker must make some claim to knowledge, yet he cannot specify what the nature and possibility of knowledge are. He fails to settle the issues of truth, verification, relevance, and justification. The pitfalls of relativism and skepticism and the requirement of omniscience are all too much for him. And finally, his only alternative, an appeal to authority, is illegitimate according to his own ground rules. We need hardly go beyond this point, for the farce of autonomy is apparent. The knower who claims to be epistemologically independent of God must lay claim to that-which-he-knows-not-what; he must be sure of having something he is not sure of. In the long run, the autonomous thinker must pit his own epistemological credentials against, and covet, those of God.

Chaos and Subjectivism in History 
There are further perplexities that the autonomous thinker faces. By rejecting the God of scriptural revelation there is no one great plan and direction for history, there is no exhaustive interpretation of reality as a whole, there is no explanation of what exists and for what happens in history. Hence the autonomous thinker seeks to find truth in an ultimately mysterious environment, an inexplicable time-space continuum. 

However, there are two problematic implicates that attach to this view implicit in autonomy. First, if the historical universe is ultimately mysterious then anything that appears to be understandable or true for the present is actually a delusion, a mirage along the way to final agnosticism and ignorance. This would render the autonomous man’s “knowledge” a comfortable deception. Secondly, in an ultimately uninterpreted universe the autonomous man would be generating original interpretations of the state of affairs. So under the guise of finding out about reality and exploring its characteristics the autonomous man would actually be legislating for reality; his interpretation would be projected upon the world. So then, by rejecting revelational epistemology the autonomous man renders his own knowledge illusory and subjective at best. His own reason determines what shall be possible and impossible even though it has no control over history and is itself circumscribed by the system of logic in which it functions. The facts discovered by the autonomous man will be fitted to the mold of the arbitrary mind and interpretative scheme of the autonomous man. Epistemological distortion becomes an inherent difficulty.

An Irrational Universe
And the problems of autonomous thinking do not end here. Let us now turn our attention to the two most common and fundamental assumptions of independent thinkers: the law of non-contradiction and the uniformity of nature. If the autonomous man has no justification for holding to these two principles, then the very foundations of his science and philosophy will have crumbled. Without God there is no warrant to assume these principles. If the triune God, the world, and man are not what Scripture says that they are, we have no rationality or meaningful factuality to expect in our intellectual pursuits. What justification has the autonomous man for assuming the law of non-contradiction to be a reliable principle? The independent thinker is quick to respond that the critic himself must assume the law of non-contradiction in order to argue against him; of course, this is true since all discourse requires logical distinctions (or else every utterance would mean anything and everything else). But it does not follow from this fact that the function of logic is its own foundation! Furthermore, noting that the critic of the autonomous man must also assume the law of non-contradiction is a moot point; the critic may very well have a foundation for his use of logic within his worldview. 

Moreover, for the autonomous man to appeal to the law of non-contradiction in order to support his use of that law is to reason in a vicious circle; he proves his conclusion by appealing to his conclusion. This is illegitimate for him elsewhere, so it must be prohibited here also—or else we have a deplorable case of special pleading and inconsistency simply because the autonomous man wants to be arbitrarily granted the right to get his intellectual endeavor off the ground. At this point the autonomous thinker may make note of the fact that we all think according to the law of non-contradiction. Strictly speaking, this is only an indication that we are bound to think in certain patterns; this does not tell us anything about the truthfulness or appropriateness of those patterns! Perhaps we are locked into a distorted mind-set.


The autonomous man must be pressed to explain the necessity of the laws of logic. What is the source of this necessity? . The definitions of logic and specifications of its subject matter are varied indeed. It is hard to decide what kind of evidence the logician is supposed to have for his claims (e.g., “disjunctive syllogism is a valid form of argument”) when the various approaches to logic are speaking of categorically different types of objects, which in turn call for fundamentally distinct modes of cognition. Logic is not a philosophically neutral and unproblematic tool. For instance it makes unmistakable demands on one’s metaphysic. The laws of logic are abstract, nontemporal relations, and therefore seem to presuppose a non-sensory world—which will prove an uncomfortable assumption for the materialistic unbeliever.

Going even deeper we should note that the autonomous man, by rejecting God and thereby His sovereign control over history, has no assurance of order in the world or that the historical facts will fit a coherent pattern. How can he make any sense of distinctions in an utterly lawless and chance universe? Identity and distinction become blurred when all “order” is contingent. No system of truth could be possible in a chance universe. Therefore, connections and relations between particular states of affairs or between particular thoughts would be simply impossible. Hence no intelligible use of logic could develop. If fate lies behind all historical eventuation, the structure of the world and our mental functions as well as all occurrences, changes, and continuities would be irrational and never necessarily connected. The autonomous man is at a loss to generate rationality in an irrational world.

Since the autonomous thinkers mind always operates in terms of the law of non-contradiction it should follow that reality as a whole is rational to the core for the autonomous man. Yet by placing irrationality behind everything (i.e., denying that there is a determinate mind and purpose controlling everything) the autonomous thinker comes into direct contradiction with himself: he simultaneously affirms the rationality of all reality (it must be so since his mind must be able to think through the facts) and its ultimate irrationality (there is no sovereign God according to whose plan history proceeds).

Even if the formal principle of non-contradiction were granted, what would the autonomous man apply it to? According to his own position there could be no connection between the individual states of affairs brought about by irrational history. The particulars would be unrelated since there is no plan or interpretation preceding them. How could a fact be understood without a context? If the mind of the autonomous thinker relates all the facts together and builds up the contextual system, then he is only understanding what he has beforehand determined to understand anyway; the interpretation of a fact has been completely read into the world before the autonomous man goes to explore it. The problem of subjectivism is the constant thorn in the autonomous man’s epistemological flesh. If his interpretation is prefabricated, why bother to go to the world of facts in search of truth?

Facts can be connected only by means of the laws of inference when the facts are intelligible, which they are not if history is irrational. What does logic profit a person who rejects God? He is caught between subjective solipsism (the facts are related only by his active mind) and skepticism (the particulars are unrelated).

Uniformity of nature
The second principle vital to independent thinkers is the uniformity of nature. If they could not be assured that the future will be like the past, that subsequent events will sustain a causal relation to previous states of affairs, the basis for any science would be lost. Even descriptive history would be impossible (e.g.: Is my present thought about the French Revolution identical with previous thoughts? Is there continuity in my memory?). All the discoveries of science would be totally irrelevant for the future, and knowledge in any significant sense would be dissolved. 

Now how can the self-styled independent thinker justify his assumption of uniformity?
Initially, he would appeal to past uniformity; yet this fails to answer the question. What right have we to read the past into the future? Then the autonomous thinker might observe that we all assume this uniformity and even his critic relies on such a crucial axiom; however, this observation simply fails to justify the autonomous man’s axiom and only reiterates his uncritical dependence on it. Moreover, the critic may have good reason to assume uniformity, but this does not bolster the legitimacy of the autonomous man’s appeal to it. The universal uniformity of nature cannot be verified from the experience of the independent thinker in any final sense since that principle exceeds the bounds of his experience. And the principle of uniformity is not an a priori necessary truth (to deny uniformity is not self-contradictory). 

So the most fundamental premise of all autonomous science, the uniformity of nature, is neither empirically nor rationally justifiable! 

Years ago David Hume demonstrated that the scientist proceeds on a scientifically unfounded, yet critically essential, belief in the uniformity of nature. There is no reason beyond psychological habit for the naturalistic scientist to expect the future to resemble the past. Since history has no plan and coherence behind it and moves according to the whimsical force of an irrational fate (according to the autonomous man’s implicit outlook), we should not expect nature to be anything but totally discontinuous at any future time. By assuming that there is no God in control of history the naturalistic scientist cannot assume a regulated universe. At this juncture the autonomous man may attempt to defend uniformity by trying to build a causal bridge between past and future events. But what grounds could he have for believing that a causal principle operates in reality? If history has no coherence in itself, then no particular can be related to any other particular in any way whatsoever, much less causally. As the naturalist looks at the world he may note succession of events, but he does not observe any necessary connections; cause and effect are arbitrary categories he forces upon the facts.

The consistent naturalistic scientist entertains an irrational belief so that his “rational” endeavor can get started. In this prescientific realm of metaphysics and epistemology we must depend on either speculation or revelation, and only an authoritative revelation can deliver us from the subjective relativism of human opinion and unimportant logical tautologies.

The rejection of God's revelation constitutes the core of autonomous thinking. If man proceeds autonomously, then the only thing that can be discovered in the world is his own interpretative and ordering activity; Hence he ends up accepting his own interpretation, based on his own thinking as the ultimate instantiator of truth,  and authority.  The conclusions a scientist arrives at will always be within the bounds of and actually directed by the metaphysical moorings. 

Autonomous man must constantly appeal to his personal authority ( being the ultimate legislator of what is true, or not true, possible, or not possible ) while rejecting all appeals to external authority, must generate knowledge in an ultimately unknowable universe ( while not having a justification/foundation to presuppose that the universe is knowable, uniform, stable, and governed by physical laws ), must seek and find truth, but cannot justify his own dependence on the principles of non-contradiction and natural uniformity must be ultimately skeptical and omniscient at the same time. 

By clutching after God’s epistemological prerogatives the allegedly autonomous thinker ascribes to himself the right to assign interpretation to the flow of experience, the flux of reality. All facts are taken as random and uninterpreted until rationalized, organized, related, and explained by the autonomous thinker.

Everything reduces to a fortuitous compilation of time, matter, and chance. The mind of the autonomous thinker is taken as ultimate in epistemological matters. A clear revelation of God in every fact, and the need to assume the exhaustive knowledge and control of God in every reasoning endeavor are both denied. The world is then interpreted in terms, not of God’s Word, but the speculations of the autonomous man. What results is absurdity and despair.

Knowing himself not to be omniscient and therefore impotent to provide a complete rational system of interpretation for the world, the self-proclaimed autonomous man ultimately posits a set of mutually exclusive limiting concepts. His scientific efforts require nature to be viewed as uniform and the cosmic process to be inevitably predictable (given enough data); hence he is a metaphysical determinist. Even man’s behavior must be a predictable part of the cosmic machinery. If his own mind is to be the ultimate interpreter of reality, the final epistemic authority, then the autonomous man must be a rationalist. And since he cannot escape feeling that some kinds of behavior are disturbing, wrong, and ought not to be done, he is an ethical absolutist; without ethical norms communal stability would be impossible.  However, this same autonomous man has a driving need for personal dignity and freedom, so he cannot view the world as uniformly and completely determined after all. There must be metaphysical indeterminism, thus guaranteeing the freedom of his own volitions.

Man’s mind cannot be absolute; it is finite and subject to error. It is swallowed up by the unknown, the anomalous, the radically new, the unforeseeable future, the movement of fate. Epistemological irrationalism must be admitted and welcomed. Since he is the “free man,” the autonomous thinker cannot be bound by authoritatively imposed moral strictures. Each man must spontaneously choose the “good” for himself, and such choice differs from man to man (based on his own conscience, needs, training, environment, etc.). The autonomous man has the prerogative to choose a different “good,” a different moral axiom from that of others; he is a moral relativist.


We must recognize the inner contradiction, the dialectical tension, that is the inevitable result of autonomous thinking: determinism/indeterminism, rationalism/irrationalism, absolutism/relativism. By refusing to “think God’s thoughts after Him” on the creaturely level, by making himself (rather than the Creator) the ultimate interpreter and arbitrator of truth, by not acknowledging himself and the world around him to be created, dependent, and revelatory of God, the autonomous man must end up pitting nature against freedom, science against personal dignity. In the end, these contrary demands that his autonomous thinking imposes will leave his intellectual endeavors embarrassingly divided or despairingly shattered. “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain which build it.” Only upon the solid rock of Christ’s authoritative Word can one build a life and intellectual endeavor that can stand strong.

Naturalism vs Theism: Two opposing views
The unbeliever holds just the opposite. Even their respective methodologies are divergent: one begins with the Creator and approaches the world thinking God’s thoughts after Him, while the other attempts to interpret experience by imposing abstract, formal, unifying principles on concrete, contingent, diverse facts. For the non-Christian, the laws of logic are self-sufficient and ultimate, but the Christian sees them as dependent upon the mind of God. The skeptic and believer disagree, at base, over the very philosophy of factuality and logic—not just this or that fact. What is involved is two world-and-life views; hence in principle, there is the complete antithesis. So what use is there in reasoning together? 


The non-Christian is something of an intellectual schizophrenic: he professes to believe one thing, but in his “heart of hearts” believes something else. Being created as God’s image and being surrounded by a world and history that clearly reveal God, the unbeliever cannot avoid depending upon God and His revelation in order to reason at all. Two kinds of belief work side by side in the non-Christian: that which is outwardly professed (and that which he attempts to live by), and that which he genuinely believes but refuses to acknowledge. An earlier article explained how a person can genuinely know something and yet deny knowing it; this is the case for the “unbeliever.” He lives in a constant tension between what he is (and cannot avoid knowing) and what he tries to be (and makes claim to know). Because the non-Christian is not consistent with his claims to autonomy (thanks to God’s restraining common grace), because he is a creature made in God’s image, and because he does not live in a vacuum but an atmosphere that surrounds him with a clear revelation of God, the Christian is able to reason with him. The believer appeals to, and is understood based upon, the image of God and suppressed beliefs in the non-Christian. The Christian and non-Christian do have certain ultimate beliefs in common; both are made in God’s image and have the metaphysical situation in common, living in the same world created by God. It is this commonality which makes apologetics worthwhile, while it is the disparity between their kinds of belief (acknowledged, unacknowledged) that makes apologetics necessary.

The non-Christian has ethically responded to his knowledge of God and God’s world in an improper and rebellious manner. Hence he thinks that his knowledge of the world came independent of any reliance on a divine revelation. He proceeds to reason and interpret independently of God, not realizing that the formal activity of scientific investigation and use of logic take place only in terms of his suppressed knowledge of God. The unbeliever could not reason at all unless he schizophrenically believed other than his outward profession of autonomy would indicate. Since he constantly makes use of his suppressed knowledge of God, the non-Christian can understand the arguments of the Christian apologist since they enunciate, elaborate, and presuppose those beliefs. Being epistemologically schizophrenic, the unbeliever can gain knowledge in spite of his outwardly espoused position and he can apprehend the Christian polemic.

The Christian apologist must realize that the non-Christian self-deceivingly knows that the metaphysical situation and his own person are exactly as Scripture describes. Yet the non-Christian will attempt to argue on terms not consistent with what he knows to be true. He will play at autonomy and expect the Christian to do so also. The Christian must then point out that the non-Christian could not reason at all in terms of his propounded beliefs. The Christian knows that only one metaphysic is suitable for rational scientific epistemology and that the non-Christian has no foundation for any argumentation unless he admits to his suppressed belief in God. Hence the Christian apologist confronts two kinds of belief in the non-Christian; he argues against the professed beliefs by showing them impossible, and he appeals to the suppressed beliefs. The Christian cannot appeal to commonly interpreted facts on the conscious level and use a neutral methodology to move the non-Christian over to the Christian position, for the Christian and non-Christian do not have conscious interpretations in common since the unbeliever views everything as independent of God. A neutral methodology, moreover, has already been shown to be impossible; the Christian must either reason as a believer or must disobediently behave and think as an unbeliever. The unbeliever must be urged to become a self-conscious believer or else be forced to see the farce of his epistemological position; the non-Christian must be challenged to give an account of anything he knows of his espoused autonomous outlook.

Attacking the Unbeliever’s Inconsistency 
So when the Christian apologist approaches the unbeliever it must be “all or nothing” as far as what the non-Christian can properly understand on his own basis. If the world were self-explanatory and could be interpreted in terms of principles inherent in the world, then a non-Christian would gladly wield the law of parsimony and point out that Christians multiply entities (for instance, God) beyond need and justification. But the fact of the matter is that nothing could be understood on the basis of autonomous principles. Therefore, the Christian must use a dogmatic (not neutral) apologetic, incisively challenging the non-Christian on every point of knowledge and interpretation. God either rules as sovereign in interpretation over all areas or none. Our message must be that 

Christianity alone has the true and only adequate interpretation of nature and history as well as the God-situation. 

Summing up, the Christian should reason with the non-Christian because the unbeliever is not autonomous as he professes to be. He is not able to account for any knowledge that God has permitted him to gain. Being epistemologically schizophrenic, the unbeliever knows that the God of the Bible exists but refuses to admit it. This inconsistency renders him susceptible to the Christian polemic at all times. In this polemic the Christian should challenge the unbeliever on the entire field of knowledge rather than trying to establish pseudo-agreements in the interpretation of some facts that hopefully can lead up, by neutral methodology, to full Christian faith. The common ground between believer and skeptic is metaphysical. The Christian summons the unbeliever to epistemological consistency by challenging his theoretical autonomy and appealing to the image of God in which he exists. The Christian does not feel that there are two systems of truth just because the believer and skeptic have different professed presuppositions. If there were two separate systems of truth, we would be led either (1) not to reason at all, or (2) to present something less than Christianity and accommodate the presuppositions of the non-Christian. The first fails to see that the non-Christian can have knowledge based only on Christian premises and that the non-Christian’s problem is that he ethically refuses to face up to this fact. The second fails to see that there would be no way to bridge the gap between the mutually exclusive systems, and there would be no possibility of conversion without an irrational leap.

Thus the Christian does an internal critique of the non-Christian’s system and brings to bear every evidence of Scripture’s truth. Realizing the necessity of regeneration and illumination by the Holy Spirit, the believer will refrain from compromises. When the case has been boldly made that the unbeliever must repent and admit to his suppressed knowledge of God if he is to have theoretical grounding for any knowledge whatsoever, then the Holy Spirit either opens his eyes at present or will do so at a coming day. In this present life God’s common grace restrains the apostate from utter intellectual self-destruction. While not positing neutral ground between the Christian and non-Christian interpretative systems, common grace nevertheless prevents the non-Christian from being consistent with his futile boast of autonomy. But in that coming day the unbeliever will cease to be schizophrenic and will fully become what he continually strived to be, but as yet could not be—completely independent of God. This will be hell.

If the non-Christian’s autonomy is to be challenged, the apologist must show him that he cannot interpret any area of experience on his autonomous terms without thereby making it unintelligible. To argue with him otherwise is to grant him more than he honestly deserves. 

When a Christian replies to the attacks of his non-Christian opponent he must not be unfaithful to his Lord but must obediently presuppose Scripture’s truth and rely on the Holy Spirit for conversion.

Summary of Presuppositional Apologetic Method by Greg Bahnsen (from Always Ready)

what is needed is not piece-meal replies, probabilities, or isolated evidence but rather an attack upon the underlying presuppositions of the unbeliever’s system of thought.

5. The unbeliever’s way of thinking is characterized as follows:
a. By nature the unbeliever is the image of God Gen 1:26 and, therefore inescapably religious; his heart testifies continually, as does also the clear revelation of God around him, to God’s existence and character Rom, 1:19, 20, [1:32].
b. But the unbeliever exchanges the truth for a lie Rom 1:25. He is a fool who refuses to begin his thinking with reverence for the Lord Pr 1:7; he will not build upon Christ’s self-evidencing words Mt 7:26, 27 and suppresses the unavoidable revelation of God in nature Rom 1:18.
c. Because he delights not in understanding but chooses to serve the creature rather than the Creator Rom 1:25, the unbeliever is self-confidently committed to his own ways of thought Pr 12:15; being convinced that he could not be fundamentally wrong, he flaunts perverse thinking and challenges the self-attesting word of God Pr 13:16; 1 Cor 2:14.
d. Consequently, the unbeliever’s thinking results in ignorance; in his darkened futile mind  Eph 4:17, 18 he actually hates knowledge Pr 1:22 and can gain only a “knowledge” falsely so-called 1 Tim 6:20 (NASB).
e. To the extent that he actually knows anything, it is due to his unacknowledged dependence upon the suppressed truth about God within him Rom 1:18, 21. This renders the unbeliever intellectually schizophrenic: by his espoused way of thinking he actually  “opposes himself” and shows a need for a radical “change of mind” (repentance) unto a  genuine knowledge of the truth 2 Tim 2:25 (NASB).
f. The unbeliever’s ignorance is culpable because he is without excuse for his rebellion against God’s revelation; hence he is “without an apologetic” for his thoughts. Rom 1:20
g. His unbelief does not stem from a lack of factual evidence but from his refusal to submit to the authoritative word of God from the beginning of his thinking. Lk 16:31

The Requirements of the Apologist:
1. The apologist must have the proper attitude; he must not be arrogant or quarrelsome 2 Tim  2:23–25, but with humility Js 3:13 and respect he must argue in a gentle and peaceable manner 1 Pet 3:15b.
2. The apologist must have the proper starting point Jn 14:6; he must take God’s word as his self-evidencing presupposition Mt 7:29, thinking God’s thoughts after Him Ps 36:9 (rather than attempting to be neutral), and viewing God’s word as more sure than even his personal experience of the facts 2 Pet 1:16–19.
3. The apologist must have the proper method; working on the unbeliever’s unacknowledged presuppositions Rom 1:18 and being firmly grounded in his own Col 2:3, 6, 7, the apologist must aim to cast down every high imagination exalted against the knowledge of God by aiming to bring every thought (his own, as well as his opponents) captive to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor 10:4, 5.4. The apologist must have the proper goal: securing the unbeliever’s unconditional surrender 2  Cor 10:5 without compromising one’s own fidelity 1 Pet 3:15a.
a. The word of the cross must be used to expose the utter pseudo-wisdom of the world as destructive foolishness. 1 Cor 1:18–20
b. Christ must be set apart as Lord in one’s heart, thus acknowledging no higher authority than God’s word and refusing to suspend intellectual commitment to its truth. 1 Pet 3:15a

The Procedure for Defending the Faith 1 Cor 1:20: [The two fold apologetic procedure of Pr 26:4, 5 is firstly 1, 2, 4 and 5 (Pr 26:4, see 5a), and secondly 3 (Pr 26:5, see 3a)]
 1. Realizing that the unbeliever is holding back the truth in unrighteousness Rom 1:18, the apologist should reject the foolish presuppositions implicit in critical questions and attempt to educate his opponent 2 Tim 2:23–25. 
2. This involves presenting the facts within the context of the Biblical philosophy of fact: 
a. God is the sovereign determiner of possibility and impossibility. Acts 26:8 
b. A proper reception and understanding of the facts requires submission to the Lordship of Christ. Acts 26:9–15 
c. Thus the facts will be significant to the unbeliever only if he has a presuppositional change of mind from darkness to light. Acts 26:19–20 
d. Scripture has the authority to declare what has happened in history and to interpret it correctly. Acts 26:22–23, 27 
3. The unbeliever’s espoused presuppositions should be forcefully attacked, asking whether knowledge is possible, given them: 
a. In order to show that God has made foolish the wisdom of the world 1 Cor 1:20 the believer can place himself on the unbeliever’s position and answer him according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceits; that is, demonstrate the outcome of unbelieving thought with its assumptions Pr 26:5. 
b. The unbeliever’s claims should be reduced to impotence and impossibility by an internal critique of his system; that is, demonstrate the ignorance of unbelief by arguing from the impossibility of anything contrary to Christianity. 1 Cor 1:20; Pr 26:5; Mt 7:26–27 
4. The apologist should appeal to the unbeliever as the image of God Gen 1:26 who has God’s clear and inescapable revelation, thus giving him an ineradicable knowledge of God Rom 1:18–21; this knowledge can be exposed by indicating unwitting expressions or by pointing to the “borrowed capital” (unadmitted presuppositions) which can be found in the unbeliever’s position [Acts 17:28, 29 and Rom 1:18]. 
5. The apologist should declare the self-evidencing and authoritative truth of God Jn 5:37, 39; Is 8:20; Jn 17:17 as the precondition of intelligibility Col 2:3 and man’s only way of salvation (from all the effects of sin, including ignorance and intellectual vanity) Jn 14:6: a. Lest the apologist become like the unbeliever, he should not answer him according to his folly but according to God’s word. Pr 26:4 b. The unbeliever can be invited to put himself on the Christian position in order to see that it provides the necessary grounds for intelligible experience and factual knowledge— thereby concluding that it alone is reasonable to hold and the very foundation for proving anything whatsoever. Col 2:3 
c. The apologist can also explain that Scripture accounts for the unbeliever’s state of mind (hostility) Col 1:21 and the failure of men to acknowledge the necessary truth of God’s revelation Rom 1:18; Ps 14:1; moreover, Scripture provides the only escape from the effects of this hostility and failure (futility and damnation) Eph 4:17–24; 1 Cor 3:18–20; Mt 7:24–29.

God as the beholder of absolute knowledge and truth has revealed himself to us, through scriptures and the created order. I believe because I acknowledge HIS authority and truthfulness. I have confidence and faith that God is who he said to be. The atheist, however, even in his limitedness, must start with the presupposition that his cognitive abilities, the orderly universe, and his senses are simply a given, they just are, he requires no further or deeper explanation for them to be at all, they are a brute fact, and upon these, he thinks he is on the high ground to conclude that the God claim is unwarranted. But by doing so, he has to make reference to what God has revealed to us and deny it. That's why the Bible says that atheists suppress the truth. They deny what they know is true, but are unwilling to acknowledge it. So they are atheists toward the God that revealed Himself in the Bible. But when hard-pressed to present an alternative, they in most cases show that they never developed a rational alternative, a worldview that explains our existence without a creator. In special, in a better manner. Then, nor rarely, they resort to the agnostic position. They say: We replace God with honesty by saying "we don't know" and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that... The fact that we don't currently know does not mean we will never know because we have science. So science warrants them the materialism of the gaps position. They are confident that science one day will discover naturalistic explanations. But they do so, even after they actually did already an intellectual journey, where they have seen that naturalism does not withstand scrutiny. They know that the universe had a beginning, therefore requires a cause. Movement and change a prime mover. Contingent beings depend on a necessary cause. The universe operates based on physical laws. Laws require a lawmaker, and otherwise, there would be nothing securing these laws to remain stable and permit an intelligible universe. These phsyical laws are based on simple, but beautiful mathematics, which requires a mathematician. The universe is finely tuned and requires a fine-tuner. Life has only been observed to come from life. DNA stores Genetic information. Information storage mechanisms are always invented by intelligence. Information requires an Informer. Genetic Information is encoded through the genetic code, and decoded and translated through complex machinery, the ribosome. Codes require a coder, translation requires a translator, and machines require a machine-maker. Cells are factories in a literal sense, and require a factory-maker. Consciousness and thinking, using language and logic have never been demonstrated to emerge from matter, chemicals, or molecules, and cannot, therefore emerge from a large number of neurons. Logic comes from logic, Consciousness comes from consciousness,  Objective moral values come from a moral giver. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21.05.2021

identity over time. If its not, than nothing means anything.
God is the sustainer and imposer of these things
regularity of nature is real
if regularity is imposed, if it is not God, what is it that imposes it?
that would be a ray of brute facts, and have no meaning whatsoever. What is it, that is imposing, what Is, can be, or cannot be.
God is invariant. immutable in his essential properties
regularity of nature
The foundational facts just are. That is not a position of neutrality, but masked as non-commital.
Everything collectively reveals himself. Every fact of creation.
Facts would be no facts.
Facts are only what they are down to their minute detail, because they are instantiated in the mind of god, implemented, and sustained by the mind of God.
What makes anything a fact ? If not God, what is? this is not sophistry.
What makes facts facts?
There is something that imposes what is, can be, or cannot be.
the set of all real things.
Something must work in a regular way, and others may not.
All discrete things simply are what they are. If the set of all real things, its an abstraction of all particulars, an imagined plurality of all things, are they changeless, are they eternal, subject to change any time?
To say that reality is all that is is absurd.
God has proven his existence, but atheists are simply not accepting it.
what is the reason to believe in the view of the not-God, which imposes what is, can be, or cannot be?
There is some amount of regularity, with a certain amount of irregularity. That permits you to make sense of the world and have intelligibility.
The principle of identity and regularity over nature is something that all people believe in.
There must be an ultimate, otherwise, it shuts down intelligibility.
The regularity of nature is a necessary precondition for intelligibility. Then something is imposing its perpetuity.
if nothing imposes what is regular in nature, and consistent
The regularity of nature includes identity over time. Certain facets of things operate regularly, and others do not. The regularity of nature, of which all belief in a certain degree.
Regularity of nature, is either real or not. It can only be real, because something secures it.
either the regularity itself has to be immuntable, or something that is unchanging is imposing it. Either the regularity of nature is absolute in itself, securing itself what is immutable, or something else imposes it.
On what grounds do they say these different laws are immutable ? based on what ?
we tend to see things as laws because they seem immutable, but if tomorrow they stop operating, the law stops being a law.
Regularity of nature must be real, and must be imposed. Pluarity of things cannot be ultimate. that's not coherent. Each of the individual laws would have to be eternal, and independent of each other. Then they could conflict with each other. Without an ultimate, where the ultimate itself is immutable, it imposes
Either these regularities occur for a reason, or no reason. If for no reason, then by chance, spontaneous occurrences, or it is imposed by an ultimate, and an absolute.  
Someone could believe in a nonpersonal absolute.
If the regularity is spontaneous, and for no reason, then it could change for no reason.
If nothing imposes continuity, then continuity is an illusion.
There is something, that keeps things regular, while permitting other things to change.
A fact can only be a fact, because it starts in Gods mind, and is secured.
God constructs this world, to reveal himself. The ultimate can only be revealed, if the ultimate
God is the universal concrete
Every single particular would be shroud in mystery. it is philosophical suicide to deny God's revelation.
you cannot have a fact without context. People want to have meaning, and facts without God.
Things must be imposed by something that is immutable.
actuality and intelligibility of facts. Contintuity and identity over time is imposed.
We know God is real, because he revealed himself.
If you reject the premise, that all the facts which you have acquainted yourself with, do not require referencing God, then you make an implicit counterclaim, that all the facts that you are acquainted with, do not require to reference God.
God is in the category of the transcendental which is the precondition of all facts. God is not in the same category of ordinary facts.
God is the source of all possibility.
principle of identity
certain things are regular, rather than a spontaneous sequence of events.
principle of identity, and principle of identity over time.
If facts are regular, they are imposed.
identifiable, justifiable absolute which imposes causality.
we all believe in regularity, causality, identity over time. if things real, something has to impose them.
God is independent from everything that is not God.
Time is the indefinite sequence / progress of events.
God coexists with things changing
The set of all real things is what is, can be, or cannot be.

If its not God, what is the ultimate reference point that makes a fact a fact? If Christianity is not true, then facts could not be a fact.
In the Christian worldview, there could not be a fact, that is not independent of God.
One cannot claim that there is no evidence for God unless one could not demonstrate that there is no God.
Its necessary to reference God as precondition of all facts
The principle of identity over time. It can only be real if something imposing it.
Something has to impose and sustain identity over time, otherwise, it is no real.
Identity over time has to be real. Otherwise it is not real, it is an illusion. Something has to impose identity over time.
Something that imposes it, must have identity over time. Something must be absolute and invariant, which imposes identity over time.
God is invariant, absolute, and imposes various levels of continuity.
We can only know that there is infact an absolute, if God constructs this world, where all facts of creation indicate him. If you do not accept that facts are an indicative of an absolute, which is a mind, if you deny that, then there will be no ultimate to instantiate, the only way we can put the ultimate on the table, when the ultimate reveals himself.
either you affirm an ultimate, or you deny it.
Without an absolute, from a metaphysical standpoint, because we have intelligibility, that is all we need to know that God exists.
Fingernails require identity. Identity over time. Something must be ultimate.
This plurality of stuff, is it eternal, in and itself?
Y ( God ) ultimate. Facts that do not derive from him do not exist.
God, a final boss.
God is absolute, and self-contained.
Atheists think about God in a non-Creator/creature distinction.
God is in a special category, where you cannot be neutral about it.

identity over time: continuity. something remains the same over time. Its identity does not change
principle of identity. Concept of the principle of continuity. If everything remains the same, there could be no predication. 
If it is real, it must be imposed. 
Otherwise, continuity would be simply an illusion
Physics = continuity
laws of physics are either unchanged by themselves or imposed
in order for continuity to be real, it must be imposed and sustained.
There is no ultimate reference point, then there is no reason why something is or in relation with anything else. 
Everything is what it is because it starts in the mind of God. 
Why is something in a relationship with another, based on what?
Absolute invariant laws of thought
The law of non-contradiction is universal, applies to all time, and all places
All possibilities derive from God
facts do or do not depend or are not derived from God? or independence, or independence of God.

dispositional facts are built-in to commitments. Dispositional facts presuppose bodies.

In a God-world, all facts necessitate referencing God as a necessary precondition.
Can God exist in a world where a single fact does not necessitate referencing God? No.
Do you believe, that any of the facts necessitate referencing the necessity of God?
Atheists are unconvinced of the existence of God.
Have you included God as a necessary precondition of facts when you invoke facts?
Do you positively believe and include God as the necessary precondition of facts when invoking facts? it's not about what you know, but what you believe.
Do you exclude God in your thinking as the necessary precondition of temporal facts?
Facts can be invoked without referencing God.
Do you exclude God as the necessary precondition of actuality, as the ultimate reference point to invoke facts?
God cannot logically exist in a world where one fact excludes the precondition of God?
Do you believe something that is absolute, ultimate, that is not God, that is the source of is, can be, or not be?
whatever proximate fact you invoke, why do you believe that it has identity, and identity over time?
Is the uniformity of nature, is it real? In order for the regularity of nature to be real, something must impose and secure it. What imposes it, must be ultimate. 
Otherwise, they would be spontaneous coincidental occurrences. 
If you don't believe that anything is absolute, then you cannot believe in the regularity of nature.
Something must be fix and static, and invariant, and absolute. 
Has it be demonstrated to you, that the regularity of nature is real? 
Something must ground, institute, impose and secure the regularity of nature.
The success of events that are similar are imposed. 
Identity over time, and the principle of identity.  If nothing imposes the continuity, the continuity is fiction, an illusion.
Either you believe that the continuity of existence is real, or is it not ? Something secures and imposes it. 
identity, identity over time, and regularity of nature. 
actuality of the regularity of nature
God is absolute, invariant, and eternal. Gods thoughts are implemented in actuality. The continuity and discontinuity. 
Wo God, facts could not be facts without God. We need contexts for facts. If we are going to talk about things, we talk about regularities. These regularities are real, or not real. 
There would be no fundamental, foundational things without someone imposing them.

1. God, which is the ultimate reference point, eternal and absolute, is the necessary precondition, the source of what is, can be, or not be, and to impose the regularity of nature.
2. The universe, in order to exist, and to operate in an orderly, stable manner, to permit atoms, planets, chemistry, molecules, and life, requires forces to be created, to have identity over time, the principle of identity, to be constant, to have the right strengths, and right coupling constants within each other.
3. If that were not the case, then these forces would and could adopt any spontaneous coincidental, values, coupling constants, and pop in and out in a stochastic chaotic manner.   
4. The universe operates based on four fundamental forces, which are stable, constant, secured, and permit a life-permitting universe.
5. Therefore, the instantiation of the fundamental forces, the coupling constants, and securing that they are constant, was instantiated by God.

God is the ultimate 
This world reveals God. 
All facts reveal that God is the ultimate creator. Either we accept or deny that. 
Facts either depend on God, and reveal God, or facts don't depend on God. 
Do you believe that facts necessitate referencing the necessity of God, as the ultimate reference point of all facts?
God is the creator. 
God is defined as ultimate, creator, eternal, absolute, the source of what can be or not be. 
When you do not believe in God, you believe that all facts that you are acquainted with, do not necessitate referencing the necessity of God.
What is it that is ultimate that is the ultimate precondition of all facts?
What is it that is a plurality of indiscrete particulars that are not God?

If all facts are contingent on God, then evil is ultimately contingent on God.
defensible, definable ultimate
reference explicitly and implicitly what is ultimate
How can we ground what is possible or impossible without referencing God?
Nothing can exist independently from God
There is no infinite regress of justification. God's revelation is circular. God himself justifies himself. God's word is self-attesting because of its internal nature.
How do we establish the authoritativeness of God's revelation? God's word derives from himself. There is nothing external that authorizes his word. So it's circular.
An axiom is an unjustified starting point.
The laws of logic are expressing God's internal nature.
Universals all require God. Establishing universals without referencing and independently of  God is false.
Everything that exists is revelatory of God.
There is nothing that exists that is not revelatory of God.
Self-consciousness acknowledges that all things, individually and collectively are revelatory of God.
God is the necessary precondition for all these things.
The nonacceptance of God is an implicit denial.
Brute facts are unintelligible.

Is it necessary to reference the necessity of God, as the ultimate reference point, to the fact that nothing can not do something? I would say no.
In a No-God world, the fact is as well that nothing would also not be able to generate something because nothing is the absence of anything.
Is God necessary as the ultimate reference point to the fact that mathematical laws cannot change? I would say no.
Is it necessary to invoke God as a reference point to the fact that there are mathematical proofs? 2 + 2 = 4, both, in a God world, and in a Non-God world. There might be no mind to acknowledge that fact, but that
does not change the state of affairs.
The same goes for abstract numbers. It is a fact that they exist in a Non-God world. They might not be acknowledge by a mind, but as soon as there is a mind, that mind is able to recognize that they exist.
Is it necessary to invoke God as a reference point to the fact that a square can never be a circle?
There are facts, or state of affairs, that are ontologically speaking, impossible, and they do not depend on invoking God.
God cannot be truthful and lie at the same time.
There are many things, which are illogical, and God cannot do.

The No-God position is incoherent and selfrefuting
In a No-God world, there is no reason to doubt anything. What would make anything off-limits ? The answer is nothing.
If you say: I believe X, you ask: Why do you believe X ? Only where we have a world where there is a mind that is eternal and absolute, we can doubt things.
Do you believe that facts necessitate referencing the necessity of God, as the ultimate reference point of all facts?
Is the Genetic Code a) an information-bearing sequence of DNA/mRNA nucleotides or b) a translation program?

A fact that does not require context must be ultimate and must be God.
Discrete particulars that are fundamental, plurality of singular things, they are independent, that puts you into pure chance
God has established continuity, while permitted things to be non-continuous. Some things are static, and others are not.
Reality is an abstraction, a conceptual concept of what is real. You can believe that all that exists is the cosmos, but abstract concepts do not stand in causal relations.
God is unconditionally nondependent.
Do you believe that some things remain the same, and other things change in the cosmos?
Is the regularity in the universe imposed by something, or is it an illusion?
principle of continuity or regularity. Without the uniformity of nature.
How does a world with materialism make sense, if the world around us, you cannot discern if it is a world of actual regularity or illusion?
Are there events that are causally connected? If so, then the regularity is real and imposed.
We start with the mind of God, where he creates the world.
Is the regularity real, or illusory? Because if illusory, you cannot make sense of anything.
When you invoke experience, you confirm implicitly the reality of nature.
imposed and secured, vs happenstance
regularity along with change. what imposes that regularity in order to be real?
Causality requires time. It is an aspect of the observed universe.
perpetuity and regularity of the universe. the set of all real things is imposing. but a set is an abstraction and does not stand in causal relation.
Is there something that is eternal, that secures and imposes the regularity of nature?
The cosmos is an abstraction of all real things. it is a mental framework. All the individual particulars that are connected with each other must be secured. you cannot appeal to an abstract set that stands in causal relations.
if its not imposed, the uniformity of nature is an illusion. Either the uniformity of nature is real, or it's not real.
itself ultimate and regular, invariant in itself, sustaining the regularity if you disbelieve that, then there is no reason for the regularity of nature. Just like roll 20 times a dice, and i get always a 7, then someone will suspect that there is a fix.
So either the uniformity of nature is real, or it's not real. If it's real, then something must impose it.
Metaphysically, what is it, that imposes, what is, what can be, or not be? What's possible or impossible?
The totality of everything, how is it to say that a conceptual set stays in causal relations? An abstraction does not stay in causal relation.
The number 2 is an abstract object, it does not stay in causal relations.
what is that is fundamental, that sets what is possible or impossible? if there is nothing singularly dictating on a grand scale what can be if there is nothing identifiable, that is imposing, what can be or not be, then you are on a world of chance. In a world of chance, there is nothing ultimately dictating, what events can take place.
events or particulars, there is no reason what can be in a not God world.
To be ultimate, no1. it must be singular. 2. That ultimate singular must institute and secure, what can be or not be.
It must be absolute, invariant, and eternal,it must be the source of everything that is. It must be independent of everything else. That's why you cannot pose a plurality of ultimates.
regularity of nature. the actuality of the causal principle, and the regularity of nature.
certain things remain the same, and others different. without the regularity of nature, you cannot learn anything. and there would be no rhyme or reason, why anything is.
in order to have infallibility for a fact, its required to have context. Predication, we invoke subject-object relations. In your world, there are no defensible subject-object relations.
Is the totality a concrete one, or is the totality, then you have no grounds, to invoke and instantiate, unity among the particularity, there is nothing imposing the unity in actuality.
When we have a myriad of particulars, there is no unity that is being imposed.
the world is unity and diversity. But the diversity must be imposed.
there must be unity among diversity. some unity amongst diversity that is imposed. Is the unity real ? or is it fiction.
do you believe that there are more than one concrete particulars? a set requires plurality.
is the totality that is, two or more particulars?
infinity serves as an idea in set theory.
Is the totality what is, there is one thing that is indivisible, only one thing concretely, or is it two or more things?
Is it a concrete one?
infinity is just a concept. if all that is, one concrete thing, then you don't have distinction. Because there are no actual distinctions between particulars.
One and many problems in philosophy. Either what is in totality, is a concrete one, or a plurality of concrete particulars.
are there more than two distinctions? more than two concrete things.
subject-object relations.
one cannot have a concept without having a mind.
God is the only thing that is self-contained and did not begin to exist.
intelligble. If there is just a number of particulars, but no unitity of the members of the set, then you need a name for every particular, but there is no lable to indicate unity, because unity must be imposed.

A plurality of concrete distinctions, abstract of collection of distinct and concrete identities. A concrete one, or a concrete many?
What is ultimate, can only be one thing. Two or more things cannot be ultimate. that is not coherent. It has to be eternal, and unconditional independent.
foundationally the source of everything that is not itself
everything, of all possibility. concrete one, or a concrete plurality of two or more discrete things.
conglomeration, two ore more distinct entities.
The one and the many problem in philosophy
Is this ultimate a concrete one, or a concrete plurality?
If energy is a single thing, then there cannot be distinctions? Why cannot there be distinctions? subject and object, there cannot be intelligible predications.
what is the composition of this energy? two or more discrete entities.
If you say it is a concrete one, then you cannot have distinctions. Without there being distinctions, you couldn't predicate, or invoke subject and object relations, cannot be.
distinctions within the ultimate? the fallacy of the white swan. all swans are white.

God is the singular ultimate. Reality is an abstraction.
Gods revelatory action. How can anyone know what the ultimate nature of things are?
Reality is an abstraction of a plurality of stuff. Set of all real things. Sometimes it's a subset of real things. It depends on the context in which it is used.

God is the ultimate

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3116-presuppositionalism#8737

Polytheism argues for a plurality of gods. If God were a plurality, like a pantheon or myriads of various Gods, and they would be independent of each other, that would result in a world of chaos. Every god would have different degrees of power, intelligence, and benevolence, or eventually, malevolence. These Gods could be equally potent and sapient, or one could be equally eternal, but more powerful than another. Eventually, one would be all-knowing, and knowing about the existence of all other gods, not tolerate the existence of these inferior Gods, and annihilate them with his power, and so the worlds that they created, and remain the sole ruler. One God could decide one thing, and another could/would cancel or destroy the creation of another God(s). If they were equally potent, then they could eventually fight each other, and one destroying the worlds created by the other God(s), and endless fights of retaliation taking place. The moral of the story: When we have a myriad of particulars, there is no unity that is being imposed. Our world is made of numerous concrete particulars which form a set, a world of plurality. All the individual particulars that are connected with each other must be secured. They stand in causal relations. The set cannot be formed by independent particulars. That would result in a stochastic world of chance and randomness. A plurality of things cannot be ultimate. that's not coherent.

God is the ultimate
There can be no facts without context. Atheists simply don't know the context of the outer layer of reality. If the outer layer, the last link of reality is not attached somehow, it will not be going to hang around. The last link to start the chain is necessary. The totality of individual facts must, at the bottom of reality, be instantiated and created by one ultimate source which is singular and united. There has to be something that is ultimate, necessary, and invariant, and immutable in its essential properties. The only thing that is self-contained and did not begin to exist. It is the source that instantiates, creates, and imposes all particulars of the real world, unites them, and sets them into a causal/functional relationship ( Like the fundamental forces of nature).

The physical forces that govern the universe remain constant - they do not change across the universe. If one fundamental constant would be changed, one law that secures the constant of one of the fundamental forces, the whole edifice, would tumble. The electric charge, plus and minus, positive, and negative, just is. If gravity were repulsive rather than attractive, then matter wouldn’t clump into complex structures. There is no fundamental reason for this state of affairs either. Gravity could be perfectly repulsive. There is no deeper explanation. If it would be different, there could/would be no stable atoms and no life. There are four forces in nature, that need to be in the right relationship with each other, the coupling constants which govern the force interactions between them must be finely tuned amongst them to the extreme, or the result would be no atoms, and a universe devoid of life. Why is the state of affairs precisely adjusted to permit life? Science has no answers to that question.

Let me give some examples.
Quarks make up protons and neutrons, which, in turn, make up an atom's nucleus. Each proton and each neutron contains three quarks. A quark is a fast-moving point of energy. There are several varieties of quarks. Protons and neutrons are composed of two types: up quarks and down quarks. The electron, the proton, and the quark are all entities within the realm of particle hence quantum physics. All three carry an electrical charge. All three have mass. Electrons have an electrical charge of -1. The electric charge of the proton is exactly equal and the opposite of the electric charge on the electron, despite the proton being 1836 times more massive/heavier than the electron. If it were not so, the universe would be devoid of life.  There is no “necessity” of an electron’s bearing a  particular electrical charge that “resides” in the electron itself. The positively charged proton gets its mass through its composition, made of a trio of quarks.  It has two quarks each with a +2/3 charge (up quark) and one quark with a -1/3 charge (down quark) for an overall balance of one positive charge. (The neutron, on the other hand, has one up quark with a  +2/3 and two down quarks each with a  -1/3 charge, for an overall balance of zero charge – neither positive nor negative.) There’s no set-in-concrete theoretical reason why this should be so. It cannot be determined from first principles, only experimentally measured. In fact, it can be demonstrated that this state of affairs is not due to physical necessity. For example, there are composite particles like Negative Delta (Delta baryons). They are composed of a trio of negative 1/3rd down quarks (-1/3). The Delta states are created by the collision of an energetic-enough nucleon pair. Experiments have revealed a large number of hadrons, of which only the proton appears to be stable.

Indeed, even if the proton is not absolutely stable, experiments show that its lifetime is at least in excess of 5.9 × 10^33 years. Why is that so? In fact, science has unraveled that 9 independent criteria require to have the right matches to allow for the existence of stable protons, and life ( Luke A. Barnes The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life  June 11, 2012 )

Another example: Protons have a mass of 938.27 MeV. Neutrons have a mass of 939.56 MeV. The difference between them is small: a neutron is about 1.29 MeV heavier than a proton. There is no obvious reason why protons and neutrons should have just these masses, but if they were even slightly different, we wouldn’t be here.

So we are justified to seek metaphysical answers. And so, alongside the older metaphysical question, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?”, there arises the question, “Why is the world orderly, rather than chaotic?” How can one explain the existence of this pervasive order? Why are there subatomic particles that have the precise configurations to permit atoms to be stable for billions of years? What accounts for it? If the regularity is spontaneous, and for no reason, then it could change for no reason. There is something, that keeps things regular while permitting other things to change.

The order in nature has to come from the hand of God, more specifically to HIS having imposed physical laws on nature and the stability and constancy of forces, in much the same way as He imposed moral laws on human beings, in their conscience ( the difference is, we can break moral laws, but the physical order does not change).

The concept of a transcendent God, the creator of nature and its order, is explicitly stated in the Bible:

Psa 148:13:
Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is lifted up; his majesty transcends earth and heaven.

Transcends appeared as well in Thomas Aquinas (the world comes from God and returns to God). God is in the category of the transcendental which is the precondition of all facts. God is not in the same category as ordinary facts. God is the source of all possibility.

Once God is removed from the equation, there is no mechanism left, which sustains and secures identity over time, what is, can be, or not be. There must be a source, that is united, singular, fundamental, changeless, and ultimate, that instantiates and imposes the particulars, the set of forces and things that permit a life-permitting universe, and secures that they are stable, constant, regular, and continuous for long periods of time.  A chance world of pure coincidences would be chaotic and stochastic, without anything that would/could secure regularity whatsoever. In as much as the universe creating itself is nonsensical ( it would have to exist prior to existing to instantiate itself) 'laws' of nature would have to be as well self-creating regularities ( They would have to instantiate themselves prior to existing ) which is absurd.

Everything collectively reveals God. Every fact of creation. Facts are only what they are down to their minute detail, because they are instantiated in the mind of God, implemented, and sustained by HIM. Without an ultimate eternal being, there would and could be no facts whatsoever.

Objection: The assumption is that if more than one god existed they would be incapable of co-operating with each other, and would instead necessarily engage in a fight to the death, like rival queen bees - though even with queen bees there is the possibility of the older queen leading a swarm out to start a new colony. What makes it suppose that if multiple gods existed they would behave in such an egotistical, megalomaniac viciously violent manner?. Even we comparatively feeble, not very wise, pretty selfish humans are capable of cooperating and getting along with others much of the time, and mostly think this is the right thing to do for the welfare of all. Some of us are desperately hungry for power over everyone else, and feel no empathy for others, but we mostly class these people as psychopaths. We think that the wisest people are those who preach and practise benevolence towards others.
Is the suggestion that the more powerful an entity is, the less moral and benevolent, the more cruel and tyrannical it is likely to be? In which case, wouldn’t a single all powerful deity be the most cruel and tyrannical entity imaginable?
Reply: The point being is not that this pantheon of Gods would behave egoistically, or cooperatively. But anything would be possible.
Monotheistic theology, synchronistically and corroborative affirmative by super elegance and the much "rested" states (non-evolving/evolvable) optimum synchronized perfections in nature, the universe, and the elegant laws of nature ...ALL duly and reasonably attest to the unparalleled SINGULAR existence of a "God;" Uncreated, Eternal, Immaterial, All-Knowing (e.g. the existence of exquisite [<100% efficient] chemistry/enzymatic biochemical interphases??), All-Powerful (E=mc²) transcendent Creative Being.
Epistemologically; "Uncreated", is an IMPOSSIBLE character trait to relatedly "wrap our heads" around, so we schematically and limitedly speak in anthropomorphic terms (the finite oxymoronically seeking to describe the Infinite) ... yet sounding no more sophisticated than the Greeks or Babylonians describing their pantheon of gods; cruel/bizarre and tyrannical.

Why Polytheism is false and Christianity True?
A theistic God exists which means he is the being that created the universe and sustains the universe he happens to be an infinite being and you can't have two infinite all right if there is an infinite being in order to have another being they don't have two infinite s-- one being would have to differ from the other being but an infinite beam doesn't lack any attributes so you couldn't have two beans that lack attributes or you couldn't have two beans that had all the attributes have two infinite attributes it could only be one infinite being that's why I think polytheism is false
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XmJ_W6Qwrw

Unity amongst diversity.
Tacit knowledge
The God of the Bible has the character and attributes for human intelligibility.
You cannot have facts without context. Atheists simply don't know the context of the outer layer. If the last link is not attached somehow, you are not going to hang around. The last link to start the chain is necessary.
1. Contingent (dependent) beings exist. 2. Contingent beings require a necessary, self-existent being in order to exist. 3. Therefore, an eternal, non-created, self-existent being must exist
Dependent beings cannot exist independently Since the universe had a beginning,it is dependent on an external necessary cause Aquinas showed us that the attributes of a true God are logically deduced.
The series of events exists as caused and not as uncaused(necessary) There must exist an uncaused necessary being that is the cause of all contingent being That cause must be uncaused. We call it God.
The physical universe exists Existence cannot come from non-existence Since we exist then being has always been in one form or another. A  being must have existed beyond the universe That being is God
The universe cannot be past eternal. Neither could it be self-caused. Therefore, it must have been caused by something else. That cause must be above and beyond physical reality. We call it God.

God is diverse in unity.
God is one being, one essence. Inseparable, but distinct, existing in three persons.
there is unity and diversity. without it, there can be no intelligibility.

Truth exists because God exists

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3116-presuppositionalism#9055

There are four preconditions that have to be met,  to be able to make truth claims: Comprehensibility, Coherence, Sense reliability, and Correspondence:

We need able to use a comprehensible language, logic that is coherent, senses that we can trust, and a world out there that corresponds to reality, which is intelligible, and which we are capable to understand. 

We need to be able to use language. Truth is an attribute of propositions, and propositions are by definition linguistic; they are statements made in a particular language, which is based on rules, and a collection of “words” that have a meaning which is assigned to them. Matter through evolutionary change has never been observed to create something, in essence, different than physical: a concept, an idea, an instruction manual, a blueprint, using the laws of language: Syntax ( the rules of grammar), Semantics ( meaning), Pragmatics ( know-how to apply and respond to the message)

We need to be able to think logically. It has never been observed, that matter suddenly becomes self-aware, conscious, able to think, speak, using logic. A random accident or evolution-producing logic is incoherent and irrational. How could genes produce a logical thought process as a consequence of an evolutionary accident by random gene mutations, and then step out of themselves, becoming a new entity with completely new faculties, becoming self-aware of its own thinking,  start to recognize its self-existence, and muse about its supposed own physical origins? Logic presupposes God because it assumes that there are true, immaterial, unchanging, good, universal, and knowable laws that govern thought and speech. The Bible says that the Word was God.  He created us in his image, so we can also think and speak logically. Matter cannot ground logic. God can.

We believe and presuppose that our senses are basically reliable and we can draw correct conclusions about the universe.  Unless the source of our own reliable senses is not as well reliable, unchanging in nature, how can chaos, and unreliability be the source of reliable senses?  We are warranted to expect that our memory and senses are reliable since they have been designed by God as stated in Scripture. God created us in His image, and since he is the supreme intelligence and all-knowing,  we are justified to believe that we have been created by God, able to gain knowledge and to reason. If our thoughts were chaotic and random, not using logic and rationality, we would not be able to make sense of anything that happens in the universe at all.

We need to presuppose and assume the uniformity of nature, that the future will be like the past.  This requires stability to the universe which depends on God which secures the laws that govern the universe.  The speed of light,  Newton's gravitational constant,  Boltzmann's constant, Planck constant, and  Vacuum permittivity: we can discover, measure, and describe them, but not derive. They are the most basic of our world. They are not calculable from even deeper principles currently known. The constants of physics are fundamental numbers that, when plugged into the laws of physics, determine the basic structure of the universe. There is no reason why these conditions don't change unpredictably from instant to instant or even a universe in which things pop in and out of existence.  The four fundamental forces must be secured, in order there not to be chaos. We know that the fundamental forces do not change across all the universe. That permits the coupling constants to be just right, which hold atoms together, and permits them to be stable.  That can only be explained by the faithful, unchanging, good God of Scripture.

Ironically, in order for an atheist to make a truth claim, that there is no evidence for God's existence, he has to borrow from the God-world, which he attempts to deny, and rely on all these: the ability to use language, logic, reliable sense perception, and an intelligible world which he takes as an unexplained axiom. Atheism cannot account for the existence of truth. Jesus can. He IS the truth.


C.S.Lewis: One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the naturalistic worldview].... The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.... [U]nless Reason is an absolute--all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.
"Is Theology Poetry?", The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
http://mirror1.booksdescr.org/ads.php?md5=9BFA0EA873D6877852A258BE06FC0A5E

“Granted that Reason is prior to matter and that the light of the primal Reason illuminates finite minds, I can understand how men should come, by observation and inference, to know a lot about the universe they live in. If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole [i.e. materialism], then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.”

The practical impossibility of atheism
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1375-the-practical-impossibility-of-atheism

Greg L. Bahnsen VAN TIL’S APOLOGETIC READINGS AND ANALYSIS

The apologist must presuppose* the truth of God’s word from start to finish in his apologetic witness. It is only to be expected that, in matters of ultimate commitment, the intended conclusion of one’s line of argumentation will also be the presuppositional standard that governs one’s manner of argumentation for that conclusion—or else the intended conclusion is not his ultimate commitment after all.

My comment: The evidentialist starts with a neutral position, to rationalize the evidence, to conclude God. The presuppositionalist starts with God and ends with God.

Presuppositional apologetics argues for the truth of Christianity “from the impossibility of the contrary.” 

The Christian apologist needs to argue with the non-Christian in an epistemologically self-conscious manner, which cannot happen if his reasoning and argumentation assume things that are actually contrary to his intended conclusion.

Atheists will always try to start a dialogue with a believer, expressing their unbelief and incredulity in the God of the Bible, challenging the defender of Christ to justify his belief, presenting sound apologetics and a defense.  

Once the believer accepts the challenge, he already starts from an inferior position and hypothetical neutrality that he does not endorse. In evidential apologetics, the believer and the unbeliever start with the evidence, that is, elucidating what we observe, and go from there, eventually, in the conclusion, the believer presents the philosophical rationalization of the evidence, what sense he makes of it, pointing to God. 

The unbeliever will have an easy play, simply expressing that he is unconvinced.

Over the years, I have learned not to entertain their play. I start questioning THEIR views about how we can exist without a creator, I put the burden of proof on THEM, and question THEIR worldview. i don't distract from their protest, claiming that they don't make a case. As soon as they play that card, I reply: If you are just here to confess your disbelief, why should I care? I want to know what you actively believe, and why. 
The all relevant question, that I ask as early as possible, is: How can we explain our existence without God? 

They cannot answer that question. They will immediately collapse by the admittance, that they don't know. Then they will justify, and say: Because we don't know, doesn't mean: Therefore God. That's a God of the Gaps fallacy. They will try to imply that WE are committing that fallacy when we actually don't.

page 152:
The standard that the Christian applies is the testimony of the Bible about itself; its character and purpose are believed on its own attestation (or witness)—being “self-attesting.” Therefore, Scripture has final authority in the reasoning of the believer.

My comment: That's basically as to expect the unbeliever to take the position that: Because the Bible says the Bible is true, I should simply accept its true, without further rationalization.

Van Til proposed that the Christian worldview “alone” provides an outlook wherein “human experience in all of its aspects has meaning.” The alternative views reduce to absurdity because they render reason, science, ethics, etc., nonsensical or incoherent.

My comment: That is the argument from meaning. Only if God exists, and gives us eternal life, what we do today, is meaningful. Otherwise, we make up a meaning by ourselves, which is however delusional. The universe doesn't care if we lived like a saint or a jerk. Tomorrow, we are all dead. I don't think however, this is a sound convincing and powerful argument by its own, enough to convince an unbeliever to change camp.

Commonly, when we talk or think about sin, immediately, what comes to mind, is misbehavior, misconduct, hurting someone, doing something considered unethical, against God's standard and law, missing the mark, breaking the ten commandments, etc., as a result of our fallen nature. 

Another aspect, however, rarely taken into consideration, is the fact that, that we do not operate solely alone on reason, but also on emotion, intuition, and will. Once we commit ourselves to live in rebellion, and autonomously to God, it affects all our worldviews and lens upon which we interpret the world around us.

Truth exists because God exists

1. There are four preconditions that have to be met,  to be able to make truth claims: a). We need able to use a comprehensible language, b). logic that is coherent, senses that we can trust, c). a world out there that corresponds to reality, which is intelligible, and which we are capable to understand. d) And we need to presuppose and assume the uniformity of nature, that the future will be like the past.

2. Language, is based on rules, and a collection of “words” that have a meaning which is assigned to them. We need to be able to think logically, in order to be intelligible. We need to apply the laws of thought: Three traditional laws: identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle. We believe and presuppose that our senses are basically reliable and we can draw correct conclusions about reality. We need to presuppose and assume the uniformity of nature, that the future will be like the past.  This requires stability to the universe and that the forces are secured.

3. It has never been observed, that matter suddenly becomes self-aware, conscious, able to think, speak, using logic. That evolutionary change could create something, in essence, different than physical: a concept, an idea, an instruction manual,  using the laws of language: syntax, semantics, pragmatics. A random accident or evolution-producing logic is incoherent and irrational. It is inconceivable that genes produce a logical thought process as a consequence of an evolutionary accident.  We believe and presuppose that our senses are basically reliable and we can draw correct conclusions about the universe. The source of our own reliable senses must as well reliable, and unchanging in nature, since chaos cannot be the source of reliable senses.   The laws of nature: we can discover, measure, and describe them, but not derive. They are the most basic of our world. They are not calculable from even deeper principles. There is no reason why these conditions don't change unpredictably from instant to instant or even a universe in which things pop in and out of existence.  The four fundamental forces must be secured, to be stable in order there not to be chaos. We know that the fundamental forces do not change across all the universe. That permits the coupling constants to be just right, which hold atoms together, and permits them to be stable.

4. Language and Logic presupposes God because it assumes that there are true, immaterial, unchanging, good, universal, and knowable laws that govern thought and speech. The Bible says that the Word was God.  He created us in his image, so we can also think and speak logically. Matter cannot ground logic. God can.   We are warranted to expect that our memory and senses are reliable since they have been designed by God as stated in Scripture. God created us in His image, and since he is the supreme intelligence and all-knowing,  we are justified to believe that we have been created by God, able to gain knowledge and to reason. If our thoughts were chaotic and random, not using logic and rationality, we would not be able to make sense of anything that happens in the universe at all. The laws of physics, and the fact that the universe is orderly and stable, can only be explained by the faithful, unchanging, good God of Scripture.