Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics

The Case for Presuppositional Apologetics From Proverbs 26:4-5

Dr. Sacha Walicord


"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes."
(Proverbs 26:4-5)

Proverbs 26:4-5 is embedded in a section which Bruce Waltke calls "A Mirror of Fools." This section he sees from Verse 1 to 12. He argues this with the fact that there seems to be a pattern in which each verse except for verse 2 contains the Hebrew word fool[s] . "A Mirror of Fools" develops the theme that it is unfitting and downright dangerous to honor a fool by educating him with proverbs and entrusting him with responsible service but fitting to punish and rebuke him. After the introduction from verse 1 to verse 4 has made it clear that the fool is really not just lacking wisdom but is in his whole attitude and thinking depraved and unwise the passage presents the first application how to deal with such a fool:

This essay seeks to argue the case and use for presuppositional apologetics from Proverbs 26:4-5. Therefore, we will first have to understand who the acting persons are. Then we will have to take a closer look at the fools "folly" to finally extrapolate a concept of how to witness to or to even silence a fool. The first preliminary question to ask is "Who is the fool?". The Hebrew word kesil which used here for "fool" literally means "stubborn fool" or "stupid fool." It means a person of morally deficient character who prompts his irrational behaviour. A person who is deaf to wisdom, obtuse and cocksure of his distorted values. This word "fool" or "fools," which is used in Proverbs 26, is used 70 times in the Old Testament of which 67 times alone in the book of Proverbs. It describes the fool in his attitudes, in his thinking and in his behaviour. Accordingly the fool is despising discipline and correction (Prov. 1:7), lacks wisdom (10:14, 21 and 14:33), has poor speech (10:8, 10; 17:28; 27:3 and 10:18 etc.), lacks self-control and is hot tempered (12:16; 20:3 etc.), is morally weak and unteachable (12:15; 24:7 etc.), hopelessly bound to his folly (27:22 etc.) and not capable of taking care of his home and finances (11:29 and 21:20).

The question arises if these passages -when describing the fool- talk about the unbeliever or about the believer who acts or behaves sinful or unwise. To answer this question Prov. 1:7 is a primary source since it makes it clear right from the beginning who the fool is. This passage shows an antithesis between two groups of persons – the one who fears the LORD and the other one who "despises wisdom and instruction". Knut Heim makes the point that "Proverbs divides humanity into two classes: the wise and the righteous over against fools and the wicked. From this, we can clearly say that the "fool" in Proverbs is the unbeliever. Jay Adams points out that they are fools because they despise wisdom and they despise wisdom because they are fools. Cyclically, the two feed one another. For apologetic purposes a fool is one who does what "is right in his own eyes" (Prov.12:15; Judges 17:6) - much like Adam and Eve when they evaluated God’s command and dismissed it on their own authority. Therefore, it can clearly be stated that the fool in Proverbs 26 is the unbeliever. Yet it cannot be denied that believers at times act like the fool does. They are not the fool but occasionally they behave like the fool does. This touches the whole sanctification process as Luther described it as simul iustus et peccator. The believer is forensically considered righteous but practically in his thinking and doing he still wrestles with the "old man". This occasional foolish behavior of the believer is one aspect of the "already and not yet"-concept. One day, all evil will be defeated and the saints will be exalted and sin will be completely defeated. But now we are still living in the expectation of the final outworking of all these things. Translated to Proverbs this means that the believer is not the fool – he is the wise because he "fears the LORD" (Prov. 1:7). But he is in his conduct and attitude not actually completed yet. He is still wrestling with sinful attitudes and behaviour. In apologetic terms this means that even believers will at times be inconsistent within their beliefs and think, live or argue like the unbeliever does. This means that he will think, live or argue with like the fool. It is exactly this inconsistency in matters of thinking and living that presuppositional apologetics picks up. It forces the unbeliever and –what often is being forgotten- also the believer to live consistently with his worldview. After having described the fool as the unbeliever we have to take a closer look at his folly. The original Hebrew word for folly means "thick" or "fat" and it means someone having a certain hope or strong confidence. The fool is cocksure of his convictions which are, of course, wrong and unbiblical convictions. His hope is a false hope because it is not rooted and grounded in Christian truth but in unrighteousness.

Paul asks in 1 Corinthians: "Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (1 Cor 1:20). He shows here that the unbeliever considers himself wise but that his wisdom in reality is folly. Therefore, the wisdom of the world clearly is shown as the worldview of the fool – which is folly. Proverbs clearly shows that the fool applies his folly to all areas of life. Therefore, it can be said that the fool’s folly or foolishness is his worldview. It is his most basic mindset and describes the root of his wickedness. It is the ideological context in which the unbeliever views the world and how he interprets "the facts" . Proverbs 1:7 describes his worldview in contrast to the Christian’s worldview as "despising wisdom and instruction." Scripture clearly contrasts only two worldviews as it does in this passage (Prov. 1:7): First, the worldview of the believer, whom Scripture describes as fearing God right at "the beginning" and the worldview of the unbeliever who not only is not only does not fear the LORD but "despises wisdom and instruction". Proverbs 1:7 clearly shows an antithesis between these two worldviews.

When Scripture speaks of "wisdom", it does not mean a mere cognitive knowledge of facts about wisdom but describes a life-commitment or a consistently lived worldview. Such people live the "fear of the LORD" and everything they think, do or say is rooted and grounded in this fear which describes "not some fear, but a holy awe that flows from a healthy acknowledgement of His might and power". The wise of Proverbs sanctifies all of his life’s actions by beginning them with the right presupposition as a Christian – which is the fear of the LORD. In certain places of Scripture the phrase has become a semi technical term meaning to be in a right relationship to God through saving faith. On the other side we have the worldview of the unbeliever who is hostile to wisdom and tries to uphold his own "wisdom" which "God has made foolish" (1 Cor. 1:20). In Scriptural perspective the fool is not basically a shallow-minded or illiterate ignoramus; he can be quite educated and sophisticated in social reckoning. However he is a fool because he has forsaken the source of true wisdom in God in order to rely on his own (alleged), self-sufficient, intellectual powers.

The unbeliever’s mindset or worldview is colorfully described in the first chapter of the Book of Romans. The especially interesting part in our context is that it clearly shows that the unbeliever knows about God because "[F]or what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them." (Romans 1:19) Here Scripture without the shadow of a doubt describes the unbeliever as knowing God. The Greek text clearly shows with a definite article that it must not be translated a god but the God. So we can clearly say that the unbeliever is aware of the living God in some sense. John Frame makes the point that the unbeliever "knows God (Rom. 1:21) and does not know him at the same time (1 Cor. 1:21; 2:14)." Therefore, the antithesis between the believer and the unbeliever is not grounded in the knowing aspect but in the fearing aspect (arg. Prov.1:7). The believer as well as the unbeliever both know about God but they react in opposite ways. While the believer "fears God" (Prov. 1:7) the unbeliever "suppresses the truth in (by) unrighteousness" (Rom.1:18). The unbeliever’s worldview does not only try to ignore the existence of God -which it actually cannot ignore because of the knowledge of God’s existence- but therefore he suppresses this knowledge and any other part of the truth that is being presented to him. He does not necessarily do this consciously but he does it.

The fact that the unbeliever lives and thinks with the presupposition to suppress the truth in unrighteousness leads us to another question, namely the question of neutrality. So often unbelievers claim to be neutral and in discussing certain issues require also the believer to be neutral. This alleged neutrality deserves a closer look – especially when it comes to Christian scholarship. Teachers, researchers and writers are often led to think that honesty demands for them to put aside all distinctly Christian commitments when they study in an area which is not directly related to matters of Sunday worship. Do we really have to set our faith aside to be honest in talking to the unbeliever? And is there really such a thing as neutral ground where the believer and the unbeliever can talk just honestly and "scientifically" with each other? Doing this inevitably implies two things: First, it implies that the unbeliever is willing to be neutral and to set aside his own presuppositions. But this would collide with the fact that the unbeliever’s mindset is "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" and that he will go the "extra mile" to suppress the truth. Secondly, it implies that the unbeliever is capable of being neutral. This again would collide with the fact of the noetic effect of sin. This "noetic effect of sin" is one aspect of the doctrine of "total depravity of sinners," which says that the fall has also affected man’s mind to a degree that he cannot use it to reason properly anymore. Reid’s common sense philosophy, which says that common sense shall be the foundation of any philosophical inquiry, doesn’t take this fact in to consideration. This is even sadder if one sees how much Evangelicalism has embraced Reid’s approach in apologetics. K. Scott Oliphint, in quoting George Marsden, makes exactly this fact responsible for the "collapse of American Evangelical academia". There is not much maneuvering room here. If we abandon the governing assumptions of the Christian worldview from the start and argue from a supposed neutral starting point, we place ourselves in the same category as the atheist, all in the name of "defending the Christian faith"! There is therefore no neutral ground between the believer and the unbeliever because both have presuppositions: The believer "fears the LORD" and makes this presupposition the "beginning of wisdom" and the unbeliever is not willing (Rom 1:18 et al.) nor capable (1. Cor 2:14 et al.) of approaching the truths of God neutrally. His presuppositions are "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" and "despising wisdom and instruction." Without presuppositions people cannot argue anything because it is these presuppositions –right or wrong- that give them a starting point in any kind of argumentation. Without presuppositions about e.g. epistemology people cannot even claim to know anything. Now that the "acting persons" have been described and their worldviews have been explained we can go on to describe the concept of how to approach the unbeliever. Verse 4 first explains how not to answer the unbeliever: "Answer not the fool according to his folly, lest you be like him." This means that we must not answer the fool in his own terms. Solomon warns us not to reason with the fool (=unbeliever) based on his own presuppositions or according to the assumptions of his worldview. The believer "must not surrender the foundational assumptions of [his] Christian worldview and try to build an apologetic bridge on the foundations of, and by the tools of, unbelief." Greg Bahnsen uses the parable of the LORD Jesus in Matthew 7:24-25 to show how He substantiates Solomon’s two-step procedure and how He illustrates the difference between a wise man and a fool:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock." (Matt. 7:24-25)

Bahnsen makes the point that one has to build his apologetic method upon God’s revelation. The unbeliever must see the beauty, integrity, coherence, and necessity of God’s Word as the only foundation for interpreting reality and establishing knowledge. We are clearly called in passages like 1 Peter 3:15 to "make a defense to anyone who asks [us] for the hope that is within [us]" but we ought to do it according to God’s prescribed way and not according to the "world’s method". We have clearly seen that the unbeliever is not neutral and so shouldn’t the believer be. That what he sees as neutral is reality interpreted according to his presuppositions. When he means "neutral" he means his anti-Christian epistemology, his interpretation of the facts and his worldview which are made up "to suppress the truth in unrighteousness". On this battleground we cannot win the battle because we cannot "build our house on his sand" (Matt. 7:26) to make the unbeliever see our strong foundation. This is what Proverbs 26:4 means. It warns us that we must not answer the fool according to his folly: It means that we must not use his worldview to try to explain ours – it doesn’t work because his worldview is not neutral. If we do this we will be "like him" in not building our argumentation on the rock but on sand where we will fall (Matt. 7:27). We must not adopt portions of and procedures from his worldview and allow him to think his assumptions about the world are valid.

Proverbs 26:5 prima facie looks like a clear contradiction to Verse 4 but it isn’t. These two verses are a most brilliant unity in instructing Christians how to defend the faith. As we have seen we must not answer the fool according to his worldview but we have to show him the truth of ours by showing him the folly of his own. The believer "just for the sake of the argument" has to bring the unbeliever’s assumptions and statements to their logical conclusions and so prove him wrong. He thereby shows him that he cannot argue anything without "borrowing" from the believer’s worldview. For example the unbeliever cannot use laws of nature because he has no foundation to trust in them. He cannot even prove the existence of these laws. If the whole universe came into being by coincidence he has no certainty whatsoever that the same coincidence that brought into existence what he calls "laws of nature" will not terminate them tomorrow or even next minute. When he talks about good and evil he cannot argue what these terms mean without the absolute standard of the unchangeable creator-God. He cannot even use the laws of logic without someone reliable who created them. He cannot proof anything because he has no certainties for anything. Therefore, he tries to "steal" from the believer’s worldview. He tries to use our God-created -and therefore reliable- laws of nature. He tries to "steal" our definition of good and evil.

What we as believers have to do is push him to his own conclusions which means that we have to force him to live by the conclusions of his own presuppositions. We have to push his assumptions to their logical conclusions. In terms of Matt. 7: We do not allow him to build his house on the sand by using our rock as a ground to operate from. We answer him according to his folly for him to see his folly. Once the unbeliever has seen his folly the believer goes on to present the Gospel and the Christian worldview to him as he has presupposed it from the beginning on. Bahnsen writes: "Consequently our twin apologetic strategy boils down to this: You are challenging the unbeliever in one form or another to answer the question as to which worldview makes human experience intelligible." The unbelievers failure is a rational or philosophical failure to make sense out of knowledge, morality, beauty, etc. Dr. Van Til clearly sets forth the goal of the believer’s apologetic encounter with the unbeliever: "What we shall have to do then is to try to reduce our opponent’ position to an absurdity. Nothing less will do. Without God, man is completely lost in every respect, epistemologically as well as morally and religiously." Because the worldview nature of biblical apologetics, it does not focus on particular facts. It is not a direct argument dealing with individual facts, but an indirect one dealing with the nature of facts. Factual argumentation may become necessary, but it is never sufficient.

The final argument in dealing with an indirect argument is the argumentation from the impossibility of the contrary. This means that nothing makes sense and that nothing remains valid outside of the Christian worldview. Van Til reminded us of the fact that only the Christian life and worldview presents itself as an absolutely comprehensive interpretation of human experience and therefore is the only true interpretation of human experience. The unbeliever’s worldview, pushed to its conclusions, will show that it is not capable of proving anything. Its presuppositions are incapable of drawing any other conclusions than proving itself wrong. Therefore, Proverbs 26 commands the believer not to answer the unbeliever according to his own terms and assumptions but to lead these very presuppositions of the unbeliever ad absurdum for him to see his own folly. He has to understand that outside of the Christian worldview nothing makes sense and that he is completely lost. There we hope and pray that in his desperation he cries out for the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which we bring to him as kind and loving as we possibly can. We do this trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit who alone can change hearts.

Bibliography

Bahnsen, L., G., and Greg L. Bahnsen. Always Ready. Nacogdoches: Covenant Media Press, 1996.
Bahnsen, Greg. Pushing the Antithesis. Powder Springs: American Vision, 2007.
Bahnsen, Greg. Van Til's Apologetic. Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 1998.
DeMar, Gary. Thinking Straight in a Crooked World. Powder Springs: American Vision, 2001.
Frame, John. Apologetics to the Glory of God. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1994.
Oliphint, K. Scott. Reasons (for Faith). (Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 2006.
Til, Cornelius Van. Christian Apologetics. Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 1976.