Circling on God

I’m beginning a series of posts on apologetics that will be made up of a paper written by a friend of mine. The author, Bryce Waller, is a student at Westminster Theological Seminary California and his paper, entitled Circling on God: An Examination of Circularity in Apologetics, was written for the Christian Mind class taught by Dr. Michael Horton. Bryce’s paper is an argument in favor of presuppositional apologetics as articulated by Cornelius Van Til and deals specifically with the place of circularity in apologetics.

My plan is to post sections of the paper over the next several days. By the end of this series the entire paper will have been blogged. Hope you enjoy. Here is the first section.
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In 1 Peter 3:15, the Apostle exhorts his readers to always be “ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you.” The task of defending the Christian faith belongs to all those who have hope, that is, in Jesus Christ. But when it comes to the methodology of a defense, many Christians are divided as to what the most biblical approach is. In today’s pragmatic America, many popular apologetic manuals urge believers to opt for results-focused methods—methods that promise the success of your arguments through the presentation of the right evidence. It is easy to fall into this way of thinking in a culture where achieving the right outcome is what matters, regardless of how you get there.

When considering the “best” apologetic method, the Christian should be concerned with using the most biblical and most God-glorifying method in his or her discussions with unbelievers.[1] Scripture teaches that it is God who will ultimately bring a person to faith in his Son. Thus, Christians should desire to bring God glory by engaging in apologetics using a method that acknowledges, obeys and honors him at every step of the argument. This paper will argue that the presuppositional apologetic method as articulated by Cornelius Van Til is the most biblical, most God-glorifying and thus, most appropriate apologetic method. More specifically, this paper will show how “circular reasoning” is an essential part of this apologetic method. This paper will argue for the presuppositional method by first discussing the important role of Christ’s lordship in Christian apologetics. Secondly, it will discuss certain aspects of circular reasoning as a tactic for argumentation. Thirdly, it will show how Van Til uses circularity in his argument. And finally, it will then attempt to answer some objections to the use of circularity in apologetics, mainly objections brought against Van Til by John W. Montgomery.

Before examining circularity and its role in a biblical apologetic, it is important to establish the role of Christ’s lordship in apologetics. In the verse quoted above, 1 Peter 3:15, Peter ties together the importance of the lordship of Christ with the believer’s responsibility to offer a defense of the faith. Before he exhorts his readers to be “ready to make a defense,” he tells them they must “sanctify Christ as Lord in their hearts.” The word translated here as “sanctify” (ἁγιάσατε) literally means “to set apart.” Peter tells his readers to set apart “Christ as Lord” [emphasis added] in their hearts, emphasizing the importance of Christ’s rule over our hearts and, subsequently, our actions (cf. Matt. 12:34).[2] Only after making this point does Peter go on to exhort believers to give a defense of their hope. His point here is that Christ must be the ruler of our thinking and reasoning before we attempt to make a defense of our faith. John Frame makes this same point in his article “Van Til and the Ligonier Apologetic” where he says that “Christian thinking, like all of the Christian life, is subject to God’s lordship.”[3]

This idea has important implications for the believer engaged in apologetics. One who has set apart Christ as Lord and ruler of his or her heart cannot use an apologetic method that does not take him into account in his or her thinking or that considers him as a proposition to be proven. When Christians offer a defense of their faith to unbelievers, it is crucial that they honor and obey Christ as their Lord by thinking and interpreting the world with Christ as the final authority. But what is the best way to do this? How can a Christian obey and depend on God as revealed in the Scriptures at all points in their discussion with the unbeliever? As we will see, Van Til argues that in order to do this we must presuppose the existence of God before we begin in order to finish with the existence of God as the conclusion. In order to understand the type of circularity employed by Van Til, a more general idea of circular reasoning is a necessary starting point.
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[1] For the sake of the scope of this paper, I will limit the definition of apologetics to the engaging of the unbeliever regarding the truth claims of Christianity. Many of the same principles may be applied when apologizing to oneself and bolstering Christian faith with apologetic arguments.

[2]Simon J. Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 135.

[3]John M. Frame, “Van Til and the Ligonier Apologetic,” Westminster Theological Journal 47 no2 (Fall 1985): 282.

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Next time: “What is Circular Reasoning?”