Not just ignoring differences

Presuppositional apologetics, on the face of the matter, don’t make sense. When I go up to an atheist or a pagan (who is, as regards God, an atheist) and tell him to repent because God calls him to it, his obvious and reasonable reaction is to laugh at me: he doesn’t believe in my presupposition. No. Obviously I need to take the classical route: find our common ground (presumably reason), build up from there to the existence of God, and prove to him that he should give his life to Christ. But, then, the view of presuppositional apologetics I just gave, while common, isn’t really accurate.

A Tale of Two Verses

Presuppositional apologetics seeks to answer the requirement set up by two verses in Proverbs: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself,” and, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes” (26:4-5). On the face of it, these are in contradictions; in truth, they are two courses to be used in complement to each other.

The famous half of presuppositional apologetics is the first half. A presuppositional apologetic proclaims God sovereign and Christ crucified right from the start; it rests on the presumption that Romans 1:18-32 is indeed true, that sinners do indeed know the basic nature of God, however they try to deny it. In answer, therefore, the apologist declares the truth of the universe as the truth, refusing to let the hearer (or the apologist) stand as the judge of what is or isn’t true, the way classical apologetics can degenerate into doing.

The other half deals with the requirement to “Answer a fool according to his folly” (Prov. 26:5). Presuppositional apologetics recognizes that all the ideas and thoughts of men who hate God are founded on a false presupposition: “There is no God” (Ps. 53:1). They may make that assertion in its factual sense, denying God’s existence, or they may make it in a moral sense, denying Him obedience (actually, they do both; the question is of prominence, not question). But because a false presupposition is foundational, the whole eventually comes to nothing. Math built on 1+1=1 never adds up right; worldview built on a denial of the Creator cracks. The question the apologist asks is: which side do you go to, when it cracks? Do you abandon all truth and rightness, or do you turn to God?

Common Ground

Presuppositional apologetics, as much as classical apologetics, is built on common ground. But where classical apologetics finds that common ground in common rationality and a common desire for truth, presuppositional apologetics recognizes that man is fundamentally ethically compromised. Pagan man hates God, and he knows, on some level, that he hates God. The apologist’s job, therefore, is not to convince him of what he already knows. It is to take the common ground- knowledge of God- and build on it. Declare the gospel to the lost; make clear that they are lost, so that their attempts to deny it ring ever more hollow.

It’s all useless, unless God gives it success (Ps. 127:1). God alone saves. But the presuppositional apologetic seeks to follow the path Scripture lays out: answer the fool according to the truth, so that you do not make yourself like him; answer the fool according to his folly, so that he is without excuse. And trust in God for the result, knowing that He has promised fruit to those who follow His command.

God bless.