Bahnsen: Our Starting Point
I’m currently reading Greg Bahnsen’s Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended. I hope to have a full review here later this week. In the second chapter, Bahnsen develops his case for presuppositional apologetics out of Scripture. He eventually comes to Abraham in Genesis 22 and the case of Job. Bahnsen concludes:
From Abraham and Job we learn not to question the Word of the Lord. His veracity needs no defense, for His Word is true in virtue of its being His Word. We define Scripture as truth, therefore, or presuppose its authority; this is not the conclusion of an independent line of thought but the starting point of all our reasoning…
The Word of God demands that the apologist presuppose the veracity and authority of Scripture…
…[T]he apologist brings the absolute claim of God upon His creature to bear on the unbeliever, judging the unbeliever’s thoughts by the Word of God, which is never doubted as to its truthfulness and authority. He is willing to view any man who contradicts God’s Word as a liar rather than ever beginning to entertain the notion that God could be untrue. Scripture is our absolutely foundational standard of thinking and evaluation. The person who departs from the authoritative Word of God is the one who needs a defense, not the believer who humbly submits to the Word of the Lord as unassailable! (59)
