Greg Bahnsen- Cornelius Van Til - said "Unbelievers Believe"

[LogyxFTW]

"18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." - Romans 1:18-20

[barnesen]

This is so sad. Is this really what Xians tell themselves? What's the point? Why do they think they can speculate on what another person believes? Is the Xian so insecure that they need to impose their religion on everyone? They are like Muslims: Muslims claim that everyone is a Muslim, they just don't know it. I guess the Xian must agree, since it is the same logic. Sigh. Xian apologetics are for the stupid.

[bengphoenix]

Have you read Romans 1 AndrewcBain? Bahnsen is not introducing his own concept here, he is merely amplifying what Paul already teaches in Romans 1. All men know the true and living God, yet they choose to suppress that truth in unrighteousness, so that they can live as they want to live, not as God commands men to live. If men had no knowledge of who God is, how could they be held accountable for breaking His commandments? No, God deals justly because all men know Him, and are without excuse.

[harkying99]

This is the same argument put forth by people who speak to non english speaking people in slow english because secretly everyone speaks english.The argument is total bullshit.

[lrudd85242]

In order to be successfully self deceived, one must also successfully hide this fact from themselves.

[nbrader]

Why the fuck do I see the most well structured comments on the least well structured topics on youtube?

For your information, Greg Bahnsen is talking in circles. If there is any self-deception going on here, it's him convincing himself he's being insightful.

There is nothing to be learned from this 'logic' where contradictions are somehow consistent and assumptions are held as gospel.

[Entropy56]

The default position is not to believe in God. Christians have to read the Bible and go to church lest they fall into disbelief. Bahnsen assumes unbelievers are actively suppressing the truth, but reality proves otherwise. Christians know they have to actively bolster their faith or lose it and so it is they who are suppressing the truth.

[viper2808]

I agree, Dr. Bahnsen would make Hitchens and Dawkins look like little pre-schooll children. I have heard all of them talk and Bahnsen by far shows his mental superiority

[hazyb71]

Satan was self deceived. He knew that if he sinned against God he would inevitably lose. He still knows his destination is hell but is still active. The effect and power of sin easily includes self deception. Sin is illogical by nature. Many atheists know the truth but still deny it in order to be able ot sin without their conscience or truth ruining it.

[jaggedlittlebill]

Your god is too small. Every child will know God as we are created in His image. It's not complicated. God is perfect, the world is not- there's no issue here.

[fiercegallantry]

Bain claims "Bahnsen never solved this paradox."

Apparently the philosophy department of USC thought otherwise. They bestowed him with a Ph.D. in epistemology based on his doctoral dissertation entitled, "A Conditional Resolution of the Apparent Paradox of Self-Deception."

Guess Bain didn't know that...

[jaggedlittlebill]

There's no paradox.

It could not be otherwise.

It's just too simple for many of us to see.

[fiercegallantry]

What meds are you taking?

[fiercegallantry]

Van Til was not a fideist.

[JohnO318]

Van Til & Greg Bahnsen are right. Everybody knows the true God exists. It's just that some embrace Him & some don't. Some try really hard to escape God & are only fooling themselves.

[tlthe5th]

Do you believe men have a conscience? A mechanism which internally brings sorrow and remorse upon ones heart when they do evil? I do. And i believe that is the Lord directly dealing with His creation. Then upon seeking to clean our conscience we run into the gospel and we either accept it or reject it.

But listen to this verse. "That was the true Light, which lighteth EVERY MAN that cometh into the world." John 1:9

I'm not defending a man but simply reading the Scriptures.

[Asemodeous]

"Van Til was wrong aout fideism. Some people do come to know Christ based on evidential apologetics. That was C. S. Lewis' own testimony."

Van Til is wrong on pretty much EVERYTHING.

[anthonymilessee]

Atheism is excluded from possibility due to the atheistic presupposition that the ultimate philosophical foundation rests on personal infallibility, which humans cannot possess;

the presuppositions of atheism rest on the Psychological Fallacy for certain presuppositions of argumentation reveal themselves to be absolutely necessary & universal.

[anthonymilessee]

Wow, 20 year old Asewipe, who has denied that:

- there is absolute Moral Law,

- certain truth, and

- universal fixed Laws of Logic

And this dopey dim-wit is still trying to give theists logic lessons, he defers to that which he denies, what a knucklehead.

[xychr0]

What can be admired in young people is their zeal for discovering truth and meaning, even if you disagree with their conclusions (which change like the wind). Please love this young believer and remember what was going through your mind at 20. I know what was on mine - not much concering the Lord! God Bless, - Xy

[norgeforkristus]

Van til and Bahnsen are Calvinists. In order to understand where they are

coming from you should pick up a copy of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian

Religion. In this two volume set you fill find a Biblical and clear explanation of

how man both knows God and at the same time rejects him. Known Creator, uknown Redeemer, hence Matt.28.

[ephestian]

Bahnsen and Van Til are dead, but Ravi Zacharias is alive, invite him to a public debate, I would pay to see it.

[Asemodeous]

All of these nut jobs cannot even grasp basic logic skills.

[HannaBarbaric]

You just proved that you know nothing on Bahnsen...

you should get a hold of some of Bahnsen's debates and lectures if you believe he doesn't grasp basic logic skills. In his debates he destroys atheist arguments by using logic and reason.

check out Bahnsen vs Stein.

[s2000r1titan]

This guy is a wank....I heard Greg explain self-deception thus: we decieve ourselves when we go to sleep...if we go to bed thinking, "gotta go to sleep! gotta go to sleep!", we can't go to sleep! So we decieve ourselves into not thinking about that which we want to do, so we can do it.

Gary North said one thing that was true: now that Bahnsen is dead, everyone will want to debate him.

[Bobo9977]

And since Christ died for all mankind and all sin including the sin of self deception, all mankind will enter heaven.

Bill Scheltema

[danslamusique]

You're being sarcastic right? the bible clearly says that a great many are damned. But if you are joking, you got van til and bahnsen's theology on the nose. Basically the more inclusive they are, the more followers they get, money, fame, etc..

[Bobo9977]

Yes I was being sarcastic.

[Bobo9977]

So then, if an unbeliever believes in the one true God, he will enter heaven, actually all mankind will enter for they all believe. And since belief is a work of God, a fruit of salvation, this must be true, yes, no?

[club157]

Has this guy read Romans 1?

Perhaps he also needs to study more of Bahnsen's work regarding epistemology and particularly self-deception.

[berettaNZ]

This analysis and critique of fails to distinguish between presupposed knowledge and knowledge of which one is aware. It is wrong to accuse Bahnsen of saying that unbelievers "secretly" believe in the Trinity, as though that's a fact they are keeping to themselves. You need to get to grips with first and second order knowledge.

[AndrewcBain]

I answered 7 objections to my position in the video description. Hope it helps.

[NeoConvert]

I would suggest that you first study how Van Til's approach to epistemology draws from his reading of Calvin, and then how his apologetic attempts to fully appreciate those matters in its method. If you don't have time to devote yourself to such study. Pick up Bahnsen's last book on Van Til. It was essentially his life's work. The position your wishing to dispute is very thoroughly explored there.

[NeoConvert]

My advice to you would be to devote a bit more of your time to studying the breadth and depth of the matter when wanting to throw together a little Final Cut Pro refutation of a Christian scholar who glorified God with his devotion to study in a manner that puts you and I to shame.

[NeoConvert]

If you have not familiarized yourself with these matters, then your quite certainly not going to appreciate the room for nuance in the phrase "knowing God." There is much more involved in it than simply affirming the proposition that God exists.

[NeoConvert]

To fully appreciate the sense in which Bahnsen believes that the concept of self-deception in the case of the unbeliever survives the apparent paradox that it poses, you're going to need to understand the epistemic issues that he feels are relevant, which stem from his commitment to Van Til's analysis of a thoroughly Christian-theistic epistemology.

[NeoConvert]

Andrew,

I'm going to assume, possibly hastily, again, that you've not studied Bahnsen's position on this matter. Your criticism in your video piece sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to the audio clip used for the piece, and not much more.

[heathac]

First, you are completely over-simplifying the issue of deception. And you wanted a single example of self-deception. It took me 20 seconds on Bible Works to find God commanding us not to deceive ourselves: Jeremiah 37:9 "Thus saith the LORD; Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart." If it's not possible to deceive yourself then I guess God was wasting his breath.

[AndrewcBain]

G'day Heathac! You're certainly right about one thing. Unbelievers are often involved in their own deception. They buy the stupid books and seek after falsehood. In that sense, they deceive themselves -- without realising it of course. They are about to fall into a pit and they don't even know it. If they knew the pit was coming, they'd change course. The fact they continue on course shows they don't know the pit is on its way. They simply cannot be aware they are deceiving themselves.

[AndrewcBain]

The moment you realise you are being deceived, you are no longer decieved, are you? You've detected the falsehood and are free from its power.

Thus to say someone can know Atheism is false, but convince himself to believe it is absurd. It's like saying someone can convince himself he's in the dark when he's sitting under a bright light.

[heathac]

I think your logic is flawed. I don't believe there is any doubt that someone can willingly deceive themselves. For instance, a husband may cheat on his wife many times, and in order to justify her own desire to stay with him, she may deceive herself into thinking that he will be faithful, all the while knowing that he will not. People often deceive themselves into thinking that someone will change when they actually express no desire to change.

[heathac]

Besides, the teaching of Rom. 1 is that the non-believer "suppresses" the truth willfully. He does this in order to justify and satisfy his own desires to be his own sovereign. This is certainly self-deception. The non-believer knows that there is a God, they even "know" him in a sense, because they see his power and deity, yet they willingly suppress this in order to justify themselves and their desires. They need no encouragement to do this, they do it of their own accord.

[heathac]

It's pretty absurd that you boasted that Scripture never spoke of self-deception and dared anyone to show that it did, and then when I gave you a passage, you never again returned to it, instead you changed subjects. Pretty typical.

[AndrewcBain]

Or something like -- "And Moses left Egypt, but then decided to make himself believe that he still lived in Egypt."

Or how about -- "and the walls of Jericho fell, but Joshua decided that in his mind he would now believe they were still up".

Sound ridiculous? My request is no more ridiculous than asking for a verse that says,

"And the unbeliever knew that God was true deep down, but decided to deceive himself into believing it was false."

[AndrewcBain]

Can you give me a single example of someone deceiving themselves in the Bible?

There are 100s of examples of one person deceiving another in Scripture. And there are countless instances of people believing falsehoods - that is, being deceived by others.

But where is there SELF-deception? I want an example like, "And King David knew in his heart the Philistines would attack after a messenger told him so, but he decided to make himself believe that the Philistines wouldn't attack".

[NeoConvert]

Seriously, Van Til's position (and thus Bahnsen's too) is so much more nuanced than the maker of this video piece represents it. This is just shoddy. Here we have in Van Til one of the greatest treasures to the Church since Augustine, and and those who aren't willing to put in the time want to pronounce on his philosophy authoratively. It is sad to no end. I would suggest that you, Andrew, pursue more of Bahnsen's work on self-deception, and in fact, Calvin's Institutes as well.

[CRHE]

I agree. This video doesn't even approach an adequate presentation of Dr. Bahnsen's argumentation and methodology. Perhaps, in order to gain some idea of what he's talking about, the maker of this video should pick up Dr. Bahnsens book 'Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis'. If you read that book, I think you will realize that instead of doing any damage to Van Tillian apologetics, you were only tickling the foot of a sleeping giant.

[CRHE]

Of course, the "you" referred to in my last post's last sentence is the make of this video, not NeoConvert. Just thought I'd clarify that.

[heathac]

Can you believe that you know what you are talking about and not know what you are talking about? Bahnsen's point is therefore established.

And secondly, as someone who has studied Van Til, I don't think anyone could ever rationally and hosestly say that the Bible did not play a pre-eminent role in his apologetics. In fact, it plays a much higher role in his than in the classical model.

[AndrewcBain]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

I've answered 7 objections to my position -- and pasted it in the video description. Just scroll up to the top right part of this page and click "more" to read my responses. Thanks!