Apologetics: Evidentialism vs. Presuppositionalism

[Soulfyre]

Are you a Christian presuppositionalist? Do you subscribe to Classical Apologetics and the proofs of the existence of God? Do believe in an historical apologetic? Are you an "evidentialist"?

If these questions leave your head swimming, but you would like to be better prepared to defend you faith when you are given the opportunity, then this is your place to learn and share.

God bless and keep you and yours,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[TheArchDuke]

Soulfyre said:

Are you a Christian presuppositionalist? Do you subscribe to Classical Apologetics and the proofs of the existence of God? Do believe in an historical apologetic? Are you an "evidentialist"?

If these questions leave your head swimming, but you would like to be better prepared to defend you faith when you are given the opportunity, then this is your place to learn and share.

God bless and keep you and yours,

Matthew (soulfyre)

i really need to brush up on some of this stuff. i had a brilliant small group leader all through high school named Ed Noble. i really learned alot of facts and tidbits from him but i rarely see him since he runs a highschool small group at my old church. i go with my family to a different one now. so i look foreward to learning from this thread.

[Soulfyre]

TheArchDuke said:

i really need to brush up on some of this stuff. i had a brilliant small group leader all through high school named Ed Noble. i really learned alot of facts and tidbits from him but i rarely see him since he runs a highschool small group at my old church. i go with my family to a different one now. so i look foreward to learning from this thread.

I'm going to suggest that we begin by comparing two different approaches, although I intend to touch upon them all. I wish to being by comparing the two most popular approaches currently in use by most evangelical Christians, that of evidentialism and that of presuppositionalism. I recommend two different authors who are typical respresentatives of each approach:

Josh McDowell, who is largely an evidentialist, wrote:

The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict
and
More Than a Carpenter

Francis Schaeffer, a moderate presuppositionalist, wrote:

Francis Schaeffer Trilogy

Reading these would enhance your understanding of these two approaches. In my next posts I will give a brief explanation of each, but this should give you and idea of my initial direction.

To loving God with all our hearts, souls, and MINDS...

God bless,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[TheArchDuke]

Matt (or anybody), right now i'm debating with someone, through email, about the existence of God. so far all i've really said is that people can't fully DISPROVE God because to KNOW that there is no God, one would have to know all there is to know and still find no God. it's always possible that God or a god exists outside of our knowledge. (obviously i love CS Lewis haha). what do you think i should say next? i'm good at defense when it comes to these debates but i'm no good at offense. i don'tknow how to challenge him and make him answer some questions

[Soulfyre]

TheArchDuke said:

Matt (or anybody), right now i'm debating with someone, through email, about the existence of God. so far all i've really said is that people can't fully DISPROVE God because to KNOW that there is no God, one would have to know all there is to know and still find no God. it's always possible that God or a god exists outside of our knowledge. (obviously i love CS Lewis haha). what do you think i should say next? i'm good at defense when it comes to these debates but i'm no good at offense. i don'tknow how to challenge him and make him answer some questions

What we first have to accept is that ultimately God cannot be proven (or, certainly, disproven) from a purely logical basis. Beginning with man and reason, most attempts to prove God tend to be circular. In essence, one must assume God to prove God. While one can reasonably demonstrate the consistency in believing in God, one is left with the problem alluded to by Jesus in his story of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar (Luke 16:19-31). As you know, at death the rich man went to hell “where he was in torment”, whereas Lazarus was carried “to Abraham’s side”. When the rich man begged that Lazarus might be sent to his father’s house to warn his sons so that they would not end up in torment, Abraham replied “They have Moses and the Prophets: Let them listen to them.” The rich man pleaded, saying “No, father Abraham...but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will believe.” To this Abraham replied: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises trom the dead.” The illustration is very telling. If someone rejects the witness of God in his word, they will not accept even miraculous evidence laid before them. Belief is as much a moral choice as an act of the will.

I think I prefer Francis Scaeffer's approach best. Belief in Jesus Christ is, in fact, the only adequate “answer” to the question of, shall we say “life, the universe, and everything” (with a nod to Douglas Adams, of course). To the non-Christian, the answer might as well be “42”! It is particularly difficult to describe what we experience as humanness and moral meaning (nobility, for example), without resorting to assumptions that only truly make sense within the framework of Christianity. While an existensialist might argue that the fact that these concepts exist is sufficient without attributing causation beyond time plus chance (although “chaos theory” can argue that the inevitable patterning of chance over time may seem providential, but may, in theory, be mathematically explained), it is difficult to look into the eyes of someone you love and tell yourself, “What I am feeling is the result of chemical reactions which in turn resulted from the urge to breed successfully which in turn was a random byproduct of evolution, and this person who stimulates such a chemical reaction in me is little more than a collection of elements—particles with electrical charges in continuous motion—whose responses only seem personal because that sensation is what evolution, over time, has produced in us. This ‘good’ feeling is only ‘good’ in the sense that it is pleasurable and is instinctive. This ‘person’ is largely a figment of the phenomena of evolution, but is no more or less important than a pebble in the road or the dirt I stand on. That I, in some sense, have a ‘consciousness of self’ is only an illusion, albeit it is my existensial reality.”<br>
Francis Schaeffer argued that at those moments in life when our sense of humanness is deeply touched, the consistent atheist can only look at their emotions with an empty rationality and say that the only “meaning” to them is largely accidental. Nietzsche understood that the consequent to his assertion that “God is dead”, spoken by the character of the madman in his book, Also Sprach Zarathrustra, could be the destruction of the cultural foundation for morality, and result in moral relativism and nihilism. Nietzsche therefore continued to seek a purely naturalistic foundation for human morality. He spent the last ten years of his life insane, cared for by his sister Elisabeth. His detractors attempted to blame this on syphilis, but recent medical science has argued that his symptoms were inconsistent with syphilitic dementia. I tend to believe, as Schaeffer argued, that this disconnect from reality resulted from his endeavor to live consistently with what he believed.

Francis Schaeffer really addresses these issues reasonably well in The God Who Is There, 30th Anniversary Edition. His approach was to gently push people to attempt to think consistently with the implications of what they propose they believe. It is sometimes that stark reality that God uses, in conjunction with his word, to convince people of their true need for belief in Jesus Christ. But generally, people operate from a point of need, and until they realize this need, no explanation or defense is sufficient. This is often why personal testimony can be so effective. God can use what others see in us as a powerful influence, when coupled with his word. Even if you receive the “Well...that's true for you, and it's nice you believe that...but don't impose your beliefs on me,” what God is and does in your own life is not arguable. Let me know why this person doesn't believe, or what they do believe, and I'll be happy to respond further.

God bless you and give you wisdom and words to express the reason for the faith that is in you,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[TheArchDuke]

i know this is a lame thing for me to do but i'm in a big hurry and i only read about 2/3 of your reply. thank you for replying, i'll read the rest of it in 2 hours when i get home. here's the last thing i said to my friend about this (i lost the message i was replying to but you can understand what he was saying by the way i replied):

hey this is mike again. if you have AIM then i think it'd be easier to talk on there, my screen name on AIM is ArchDukeOfMetal. but for now i'll answer the message you sent to chris. first of all, to answer you last message, i singled out lines from your message and replied with a stupid remark because we were still just messing around. i'm a really sarcastic person. i'll be more serious and actually answer your questions this time.

ok the first issue you bring up is the fact that chris used the word "battle". i think that the word battle is very accurate. all throughout the Bible, God uses war terminology and symbolism to describe the spiritual struggle that is going on. he tells us to put on the armor of God and take up the sword of the spirit. in revelation Jesus returns as a warrior king with a huge army to take back the earth. in the old testament, God tells the israelites to literally go to war many times. when chris used the word "battle" he wasn't refering to actual violent force he was refering to a struggle in all of us and in BETWEEN all of us.
next you state that i couldn't have a good view of my religion if i've only seen one side of it. and you're right...or you WOULD be right...but i've seen both sides of it. i wasn't BORN a christian you know. and even after i became a christian, i rejected it and went back on several occasions. it was inward for me though...i didn't start rebelling outwardly but in my head when i was alone, i didn't believe and i spent my time picking christianity apart trying to break it down and find the fault with it. what i realized was, the fault with christianity is christians. the problem is, the religion is practiced by imperfect people who don't do what they should according to the belief system. i realized that if christians are the only thing wrong with christianity then i would practice it alone and be different than them because it was about me and Jesus and that's all that mattered. after i went back to my faith and God healed me, he showed me that i shouldn't exclude myself. yes, people will fail me. even people in leadership positions in the church sin. it's not my problem to worry about, i'm just supposed to minister to people when they need me and grow in my personal relationship with christ. the other person in our band that you talked to, chris, has an even more intense story than i do. he literally hated God from what i understand. so don't assume that we were born christians and we've been blindly strolling through life without questioning what we believe.
the next issue is about how we are unable to comprehend God. (if i skip any of your points then please remind me). you're right we are unable to comprehend God fully. but what we CAN comprehend about him (from what he says in the Bible and what we feel he is telling us today) tells us that what we are doing is correct. of course if we are doing something wrong then i pray that God shows us and we will stop. i may have misunderstood you but it seems like you think that since we can't know EVERYTHING about God, then we can't truly know ANYTHING. am i correct? i'll go with that for a minute. first, i think that statement you implied (you didn't say it directly) doesn't make sense. i'm on a laptop computer right now. i'm fairly computer savy when it comes to macintosh. i know how the system works, i can make it do things like send emails, turn on and off, play music, but i don't understand all of the internal workings of the mother board. i know that the hard drive works with magnetic energy to save my information but i have no idea how it does that. but to say something like "i don't know everything about my computer so i really can't know anything" is rediculous. there is a manual about it that tells me everything i NEED to know. same thing with God, the Bible is sort of the manual for God and life. we'll never know everything but it tell's us what we need to know. the Bible, along with our consience and the Holy spirit confirm in us that what we're doing is right. if we are mistaken then i pray that the Lord tells us quickly so that i can get on with doing his work as soon as possible. You don't view God as a warfare type of God but there are many sides to God. here...i'll use an analogy from C.S.Lewis. (bare with me). pretend there is a room with an elephant and three blind men. pretend that the blind men have no clue what an elephant is and they are told that they are finally going to experience one. one blind man is holding onto the elephants tusk, another holding on to it's tail, and the third is sitting holding onto a leg. the first blind man says, "i like elephants, they are round and pointy at the end and very hard and smooth." the second one says, "no you're wrong, an elephant IS cylindrical but it's flexable. and it's not pointy at the end, it's hairy." and the last blind man says "you're both wrong, an elephant is big and thick like a tree stump. it's rough and wrinkley and seems very strong." all the blind men experienced different things but they were all right because they each experienced a different part of an elephant which is one thing with many different parts. in the same way, we each experience a different part of God but that doesn't mean we can't understand what little we do experience.

if i missed any of your points then please remind me. again, i think it would be easier to have this discussion over AIM. my screen name is ArchDukeOfMetal


-mike




EDIT: matt, i hope it isn't too hard to follow. it didn't indent my paragraphs for some reason haha#nosmileys

[Soulfyre]

Your reply was correct and cogent. The sublimity of Christianity lies in its ability to reconcile apparent "contradictions" with a satisfactory explanation. In other philosophies, one should be able to define the adherent by the consistency with which they live in respect to their world view. Yet a Christian is defined by his or her belief. The integrity of their belief may be questioned in relationship to their behavior, but "perfection", or perfect obedience to God's revealed will is to be pursued, but not to be supposed to have been attained. As Christians, we tolerate one another, bear one anothers burdens, admonish and encourage one another because we are all erring children of a loving father, having accepted God's provision through the blood of Jesus Christ, shed for us. Thus, of all beliefs, Christianity explains the sins of its own adherents in a satisfactory manner, and again establishess that it is the perfection of what is believed, not of who believes it, that is important.

Also, Christianity is based on the fact that God chose to reveal himself to us.
Hebrews 1:1-5 says: "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many time and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed hie of all things and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven." Again we have an explanation for what we may observe. Humankind is sinful, and not naturally prone to seek God. In fact, we are natural idolators, seeking explanations for events and divinity in everything but God. I do not believe that natural mind, unaided by the Holy Spirit, can reason its way to God. God does not fit within our naturalistic and humanistic framework. Hence, if we were simply sharing our human speculations about God, then our opinions would have no more validity than those who might argue that the Easter Bunny is God. But ours is a revealed religion. God is there and he is NOT silent. He is not simply the "unmoved mover" or the "silent watchmaker". God intervened in human history and revealed himself to us: by his words, by his mighty deeds, and most perfectly, by his Son. How do we know that WE are right? We don't. But there is reason to argue that the one in whom we believe is right. Can we perfectly understand God? No. Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthian church, chapter 13, verse 12: "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then shall I know fully, evan as I am fully known." We need not know exhaustively to be able to say with confidence that we know truly, because God has actively revealed himself to us--literally, man to man.

These beliefs are foundational, but also are maintained by the gracious work of God in our lives. Otherwise, they would be foolishness to us. And to the dying, we are the smell of their own decay and defeat.

I pray in the name of our Savior, Lord, and eternal High Priest Jesus Christ, that God gives you the wisdom, the winsomeness, and the words to present your beliefs clearly, and to recognize and make this person aware of the inconsistency that plagues the denial of God,

God bless and keep you, brother,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[Kenny]

I believe this is my board...and this is my thread. My entire forum is devoted to apologetics.

The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, I just bought that book on Amazon.

[Soulfyre]

Kenny said:

I believe this is my board...and this is my thread. My entire forum is devoted to apologetics.

The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, I just bought that book on Amazon. :-D

Josh McDowell's fine work in
The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict
is an excellent example of “evidentiary” apologetics. Good recommendation, Kenny.

God bless,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[Soulfyre]

As I had promised before, I want to deal briefly with the difference between evidentialism and presuppositionalism. In a nutshell, evidentialism proposes that our faith is reasonable, since it is supported by a predominance of evidence, or objective data which would logically infer the truth of that in which we believe. It seeks to establish a reasonable correllation between what is asserted to be true and data which we conventionally accept as true, or "evidence". In this sense, it is essentially deductive in nature.

One remembers the famous quotation written for the character Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." As Sherlock Holmes began with a crime scene—an accomplished fact—and deduces an explanation based on keen observation of related detail, Josh McDowell begins by considering a question, such as "Did the resurrection of Jesus Christ really occur?". He then lays out what are generally accepted as the facts, and aside them various proposed explanations for them, analyzing the probability of each. Having considered alternate explanations, Josh concludes that the explanation with a reasonable probability of being true—which appears to best or most satisfactorily explain the facts as we know them, given all evidence available to us—is that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead as explained in the New Testament. He does similar work with issues such as the identity of Jesus Christ in relationship to the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament and the trustworthiness of the canon of scripture. His work can be very helpful, especially to the Christian, in establishing a reasonable defense of his or her faith.

Nevertheless, one might argue that to some extent, evidentialism can be considered somewhat circular. One must, in fact, accept the essential character of the supporting data Josh McDowell proposes to be "evidence". In a post-modern culture, this is increasingly difficult. In physics, Newton's paradigm of classical mechanics, in its simplest sense, argues that given an instance in which one object acts on another, every action by one induces and equal and opposite reaction in the other. This was later to be supplanted by Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which proposed to describe the attributes of systems moving at high velocity approaching the speed of light. Einstein was the father of relativistic mechanics (as described) and quantum mechanics (which deals with the interaction of sub-atomic particles). These theoretical constructs could deduce an effect proportionally greater than its apparent cause, or a reaction (like nuclear fission), that grows exponentially in relationship to the initial action. Causality still pertains, but the understanding of causality has been expanded by a greater knowledge of the complexity of interactions. Or one might say that Newtonian physicists beg the question by not adequately defining "equal". The Theory of Relativity still establishes an "equality", but simply recognizes addtional variables.

The new physics appeared to describe phenomena which were not readily apparent or, while theoretically or mathematically possible, could not be easily reproduced, if at all. However, the recent discovery of sub-atomic particles and the production, though for only nanoseconds, of anti-matter in laboratory surroundings appears to indicate the validity of the assumptions. But this science led to the postulate of parallel universes or realities, and when popularized by such books as The Dancing Wu Li Masters or The Tao of Physics, have had profound and far-reaching effects on our culture's understanding of truth. These books propose an understanding of the universe which is in fact more Hindu in nature. As a result, that to which we might turn as objective evidence which supports our faith decision as rational is called into question. This is not a disagreement as to the veracity of the information we propose, but is more akin to saying that such terms as "veracity" and "objective" data now seem to make little sense. In a world of infinite complexity, variety, and possiblity, what would have been though impossible is now considered more or less probable, based on an infinite timeline. As a result, the extraordinary loses significance, being seen as only one of an infinite number of possible outcomes. The "miraculous" merely becomes the "less probable, but nevertheless possible" event of an essentially irrational, universe. Infinite possibility makes explanation a somewhat superfluous activity. All that we see, or more pertinently, assign "meaning" to, is Maya--illusion--the superimposition of a finite perception on an infinite reality.

It is at this point, in particular, that the presuppositionalim, or, more accurately, the modified presuppostionalism of Francis Schaeffer appears uniquely pertinent and capable. But more on that in my next post.

God bless,

Matthew (soulflyre)

[rgrove]

I haven't had a chance to read all of the more lengthy sections in here, but for anyone interested in listening to some MP3's of the late Greg Bahnsen, perhaps the most powerful presuppositionalist the church has produced, you may find them here:

www.cmfnow.com/subcat.asp?0=207

If you would just like to hear the end result of the presuppositional apologetic method using the Transendental argument for God's existence the debate of Greg Bahnsen with Gordon Stein in 1985 is perhaps the most famous and available for purchase here.

For good background research on this thread you may also want to listen to the debate between R.C. Sproul and Greg Bahnsen over the Classical Evidentialist method (Sproul) and the Presuppusitional method (Bahnsen).

Thank you,
Ron

[Soulfyre]

rgrove said:

I haven't had a chance to read all of the more lengthy sections in here, but for anyone interested in listening to some MP3's of the late Greg Bahnsen, perhaps the most powerful presuppositionalist the church has produced, you may find them here:

www.cmfnow.com/subcat.asp?0=207

If you would just like to hear the end result of the presuppositional apologetic method using the Transendental argument for God's existence the debate of Greg Bahnsen with Gordon Stein in 1985 is perhaps the most famous and available for purchase here.

For good background research on this thread you may also want to listen to the debate between R.C. Sproul and Greg Bahnsen over the Classical Evidentialist method (Sproul) and the Presuppusitional method (Bahnsen).

Thank you,
Ron

Thank you for that excellent recommendation. I intend to resume my writing on presuppositionalism after the holi-DAZE. I will be looking forward to becoming more familiar with Bahnsen. Most of my knowledge comes from Van Til, and Francis Schaeffer (who might be considered a modified presuppositionalist).

God bless and keep you and yours,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[mandapanda]

TheArchDuke said:

i really need to brush up on some of this stuff. i had a brilliant small group leader all through high school named Ed Noble. i really learned alot of facts and tidbits from him but i rarely see him since he runs a highschool small group at my old church. i go with my family to a different one now. so i look foreward to learning from this thread.

Ed Noble?? Did you go to EVFree Church in Fresno? My roommate went to his youth group all through high school! (Sorry, random comment not really having to do with apologetics, you can erase if you want)

-Miranda

[Soulfyre]

For those who thought I would never return to this topic...well...never say "never." I have been long struggling with the topic of presuppositionalism because there are differing schools of thought within what is commonly referred to as "presuppositional" apologetics. The challenge, of course, is how to define the category itself, and be fair to all inolved. One might begin by picturing in your mind the famous fresco by Raphael at the Vatican entitled the "School of Athens". Central to the painting are the two philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. Raphael illustrates, with great subtlety, the great tension in philosophy of "the one and the many." The question of "the one and the many" are illustrated in the gestures of the two figures. Plato, pointing upward to the heavens with his index finger gestures as if to emphasize "the one", whereas Aristotle gestures toward the earth using his palm with his fingers outspread, as if to emphasize "the many".

Plato would begin with the "form of the Good", being the ultimate object of knowledge which sheds light on all other forms. He saw the real world as in some sense emanating like shadows from these forms enlightened by the "form of the Good". His methodology was based upon this a priori. It would be, in this sense, classically presuppositional. Aristotle, on the other hand (no pun intended), believed knowledge to be derivative or deductive, based upon drawing necessary conclusions from observation of "the many". Aristotle was not strictly deductive, however, because deductive logic is limited to necessary conclusions only. Hence, pure deductive logic can rarely proceed past definition, for its certainty is always limited by its sample. There is no probablity in deductive logic, for one cannot draw probable inferences, only necessary conclusions based strictly upon the sample. Aristotle used deduction and induction. His starting point, however, was the observation of "the many", followed by the derivation, a posteriori, of a description that might then be utilized inductively, or predictively. Plato would argue, however, that Aristotle's process of deduction/induction would be impossible without the illumination of the form of the good and the categorization made possible by the forms thus illuminated, of which reality is but the shadow. Hence, the very structure within which reasoning could occur must be an a priori. The a priori is necessary, although not deductively so. It cannot be proven or postulated by the observation of the facts: rather, it must exist to provide the context in which "facts" have veridical standing, as it were. Without the a priori, proof itself becomes meaningless.

Christian presuppositionalism recognizes Biblical theism as the necessary a priori required for a defense of the faith. Evidence cannot, in fact, "demand a verdict", because aside from an implicit acceptance of the Christian world-view, such evidence is...well...not evidence. Evidence is both derivative and contextual. It only gains argumentative force in relation to an a priori or within a world view which assigns it value. Data must be assigned value in order to be used to support validity claims. Although there seems to be a certain circularity to this logic, in which one begs the question to engage in its proof, this process is used for many canons of logic which may only be proved if they are, in fact, presupposed (like the law of non-contradiction). Can the validity of the a priori be subsequently challenged? Yes, but it is often a sticky proposition for, as in the case of the Law of Non-contradiction, one must beg the question to dispute the proposition. One must assume the validity of the Law of Non-contradiction to deny the Law of Non-contradiction. Nevertheless, it should be subject on some level to falsifiability; that is, there must be, at least in the theoretical sense, data that if correct would invalidate the truth claim of the a priori. Second, an a priori must admit of self-consistency, that is, it cannot support a framwork in which A can at the same time be non-A (note that the Law of Non-contradiction, as it is sometimes called, is generally accepted a priori as being necessary to any logical construction). Third, it must provide a consistent basis for observation and categorization (it must both define and predict). To the extent than an a priori is incapable to predicting or describing the data it purports to describe, it must be considered false.

How then does this apply to Christian presuppositionalism? Cornelius Van Til would go so far as to say that a meaningful discussion of Christian evidences cannot be carried on with a non-Christian. The competing a prioris of the two individuals are mutually contradictory and hense mutually exclusive. The competing a prioris allow for the use of similar logical expression, but provide contexts of meaning that are at variance with one another, allowing for no true communitcation. There is a conflict of symbology. Van Til would argue that given this state, we must present the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for only by the power of God through his word can the persons heart be effectively enlightened and regeneration take place. The attempt to verify Christian belief in an evidentiary manner, though well-meaning, is to presumably submit the Truth of God to the rational processes of a fallen person, which processes are set against the Truth. And God does not promise to honor our words, but His words; not persuasive speech, but the power of the Gospel. While the logic of this assumption is very tight, I believe that the approach used by Francis Schaeffer is better (please note at this point that Schaeffer was a student of Van Til).


[to be continued...]

Matthew (soulfyre)

[rgrove]

Soulfyre said:

Christian presuppositionalism recognizes Biblical theism as the necessary a priori required for a defense of the faith.

This presuppositionalist would go even further and say it's necessary for a rational understanding of the world around us. All thought that doesn't start with the ontological Trinity is ultimately irrational and can't explain anything in the end. And it especially can't explain the logic they are using to explain anything with. All statements in the end are religious ones. Even 1+1=2.

Evidence cannot, in fact, "demand a verdict", because aside from an implicit acceptance of the Christian world-view, such evidence is...well...not evidence. [to be continued...]

Good point, brother. I hope people consider this seriously. So many people, Christian or not, feel like "facts" speak for themselves. Categorically false. They speak within the confines of the worldview (i.e., presuppositions) of the person looking at the "fact" in question.

Christianity is positively true and all other systems of thought are ultimately irrational because in the end they can't explain the world around us. Only by starting with the ontological Trinity can you do so. This is important to understand when looking at contemporary Christian presuppositionalism. It does not just say that there must be a God, it goes further and says that only by starting with the God of the Bible can we see the world in a rational way. As the late Greg Bahnsen once said on a tape I listened to, Christian presuppositionalism is Christian apologetics with a flamethrower.