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The Nuclear Option in Defending the Christian Faith
Why Presuppositional Apologetics Hits Like a Freight Train
Let me start with something most folks don’t want to hear: when it comes to defending the faith, you don’t win by playing nice on somebody else’s turf. You don’t score points in enemy territory by following their rules.
And that’s exactly why Cornelius Van Til’s approach to apologetics still hits like a freight train.
While most folks are out here tossing little pebbles of evidence and hoping skeptics notice, Van Til loaded the cannon, aimed straight at the foundation of unbelief, and fired. He didn’t want to “give Christianity a fair shot.” He wanted to show that Christianity is the only thing holding the whole structure of knowledge together.
Sounds kinda bold? It is. But it’s also true.
The Real Question Nobody Wants to Face
Paul boldly engages Athens’ philosophers on Mars Hill, challenging them to reconsider truth, knowledge, and God while respecting their search for meaning.
Let’s cut through the fluff. The fight isn’t just about whether Jesus rose from the dead or whether there’s “good evidence” for God. Those are important, sure—but they’re symptoms of a deeper issue.
The real question is this: how do you know anything at all?
That’s philosophy’s million-dollar word: epistemology. It means “the theory of knowledge.”
Your neighbor might say, “Well, I don’t believe in God. I believe in science.” But science itself rests on assumptions. Logic rests on assumptions. Evidence only counts as evidence if you’ve already decided what counts as truth.
And that’s where Van Til drops the hammer. Everyone has presuppositions… starting beliefs about what’s real, what’s true, and what counts as knowledge. You can’t get away from them.
So when the atheist says, “Prove to me God exists,” he’s already assuming his own human reasoning is the final judge of truth. He’s already made himself the authority. That’s his presupposition.
And Van Til said, ‘Call it out.’ Expose it. Show them how and why their whole system collapses.
The Two Roads You Can Take
Here’s the beauty of Van Til’s simplicity. At the end of the day, you’ve only got two options.
Option one: Christianity. Knowledge, logic, morality, and reality make sense because they come from God’s mind and revelation.
Option two: Everything else. Human reason sits in the captain’s chair, and the ship, helplessly drifting on a sea of chance, eventually sinks.
That’s it. No third road. No secret alleyway. No neutral territory where Christians and unbelievers can sit around sipping tea, politely comparing notes as if the two worldviews were just different flavors of ice cream.
Van Til said the worldviews clash at the roots. They’re not just different… at the end of the day… they’re at war.
Why Meeting in the Middle Doesn’t Work
Here’s where a lot of Christians with good intentions mess up. They think the way to win someone over is by easing them into faith. Start with some shared ground, toss in a few miracles, talk probabilities, and… voilà… the skeptic is halfway to Jesus.
Van Til said, forget that fantasy, it’s crazy talk.
The moment you step onto the unbeliever’s turf, you’ve already conceded the match. Because what you’re saying is: “Yes, you’re the judge. You’re the one who decides what’s true. I’ll just hand you my arguments and let you evaluate them.”
That’s backwards.
The method is the message. If God is Lord, you don’t argue like He’s sitting in the witness stand waiting for human approval. You argue like His Word is the final authority… because it is.
That’s why Van Til was drawn to Reformed theology, I suppose. It doesn’t apologize for God’s authority. It doesn’t say, “Well, let’s reason this out on man’s terms.” It says, “God has spoken, and that’s where we start.”
Paul Proved the Point Before Van Til
Now, Van Til didn’t dream this up in some ivory tower. He was just reading Paul carefully.
Check out 1 Corinthians 1–3. Paul says the “wisdom of the world” is foolishness. He says unbelievers aren’t just missing some facts or don’t have enough information … they’re blinded by rebellion. Their problem isn’t a lack of data. It’s a heart problem.
Or look at Acts 17, when Paul preached on Mars Hill. That was a showdown with some of the sharpest Greek philosophers of the day.
Now, if Paul were using the “meet them halfway” strategy, what would he have done? He would’ve started with common ground. He would’ve buttered them up with logic they already accepted. He would’ve tried to gently slide Christianity into their framework.
But that’s not what Paul did.
He stood up and said: “What you worship in ignorance, I now proclaim.”
He didn’t tiptoe. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t try to “make Christianity relevant.” He declared it. He exposed the cracks in their system and pointed straight to the God who made the world.
That’s presuppositional apologetics on full display. Bold, unapologetic, rooted in revelation.
The Ugly Truth About Unbelief
Here’s something Van Til hammered home: nobody is a neutral, innocent skeptic. Nobody is out there just weighing facts in a pure, unbiased way.
Paul said in Romans 1 that everyone already knows God exists. Creation itself makes it plain. But unbelievers suppress that truth. They bury it. They hide it under layers of rebellion.
That’s why Van Til talked about “culpable ignorance.” People aren’t just misinformed; they’re guilty of ignoring the truth staring them in the face.
So apologetics isn’t about giving them new data like some cosmic math problem. It’s about exposing the rebellion at the root and calling them to repentance.
How to Defend the Faith This Way
So let’s get practical. What does it look like to use Van Til’s method?
First, stop playing defense with scraps. Don’t just argue about fossils, miracles, or morality in isolation. Those are skirmishes. You need to hit the foundation.
Ask the deeper question: Can knowledge even exist apart from God?
Point out the circular reasoning. Every worldview runs in a circle, but Christianity’s circle closes because it starts with the God who made logic, morality, and reality itself. Unbelief’s circle always breaks because it depends on finite, shifting human reasoning.
Second, don’t shy away from contrast. Show Christianity and unbelief side by side. One holds together. The other collapses.
Finally, remember this isn’t about scoring debate points. It’s about calling people to Christ. Don’t just win the argument… change the filter and win the soul.
Why This Still Matters Today
Now you might be thinking, “That sounds great for the classroom, but what about the real world? What about my skeptical coworker or my atheist cousin?”
Here’s the thing: the battlefield hasn’t changed. People still come with the same presuppositions. They still want to make themselves the final judge of truth. And the temptation is still there for Christians to compromise, soften, or try to sneak Christianity in through the back door of “common ground.”
But Van Til’s challenge is timeless: don’t do it. Don’t play by their rules. Don’t treat God like He’s waiting on trial. Declare His truth. Show the cracks in unbelief. And call people to stand on the only foundation that won’t crumble.
When the Dust Settles
Arguments rise and fall, but when the dust settles, one truth remains standing: God alone makes sense of the world. Presuppositional apologetics is like dynamite. It doesn’t nibble at the edges of unbelief. It blows the foundation wide open.
It says, without God, knowledge collapses. Logic collapses. Morality collapses. Life collapses.
There is no neutral ground. No halfway house. No maybe.
Either you stand on Christ the solid rock… or you sink with the shifting sands of human reason.
Van Til’s voice still thunders through the years: Don’t defend scraps. Don’t play their game. Proclaim Christ as Lord of all truth.
That’s the only ground that holds.
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