Presuppositional Apologetics Quotes

“I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else”
― Cornelius Van Til

“Deny that the Bible is, without any qualifications, the very Word of God, and you are left without any ultimate standard of measurement and without any supreme authority. Grant that the Bible is a Divine revelation and communication of God's own mind and will to men, and you have a fixed starting point from which an advance can be made into the domain of truth.”
― Arthur W. Pink

“Or, to put it another way, presuppositional apologetics--such as that developed by Francis Schaeffer, but also by Cornelius Van Til and, to a degree, Herman Dooeyeweerd--rejects classical apologetics precisely because presuppositionalism recognizes the truth of Derrida's claim that everything is interpretation (though I am admittedly radicalizing their intuitions).”
― James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church

“The unbeliever attempts to enlist logic, science, and morality in his debate against the truth of Christianity. Van Til's apologetic answers these attempts by arguing that only the truth of Christianity can rescue the meaningfulness and cogency of logic, science, and morality.”
― Greg L. Bahnsen

“Therefore, the authority of Christ and His word, rather than intellectual autonomy, must govern the starting point and method of his apologetics, as well as its conclusion. He challenges the philosophical adequacy of the unbeliever's worldview, showing how it does not provide the preconditions for the intelligibility of knowledge and morality. His case for Christianity, then, argues from the impossibility of the contrary. From beginning to end, both in his own philosophical method and in what he aims to bring about in the unbeliever's thinking, the Christian apologist reasons in such a way "that in all things Christ might have the preeminence" (Col. 1:18).”
― Greg L. Bahnsen

“Van Til's presuppositional approach: (a) locating his opponent's crucial presuppositions, (b) criticizing the autonomous attitude that arises from a failure to honor the Creator-creature distinction, (c) exposing the internal and destructive philosophical tensions that attend autonomy, and then (d) setting forth the only viable alternative, biblical Christianity.”
― Greg L. Bahnsen

“Van Til's insight… was that antitheism actually presupposes theism. To reason at all, the unbeliever must operate on assumptions that actually contradict his espoused presuppositions — assumptions that comport only with the Christian worldview. The unbeliever's efforts to be rational and to find an intelligible interpretation of his experience are, then, indications that he bears a knowledge of God the Creator within his heart, though struggling to suppress it (as the Bible itself speaks of sinful man's condition)”
― Greg L. Bahnsen

“Apologetics involves a conflict over ultimate authorities — that is, a conflict over our presuppositions or final standard. What should be the source of a person's presuppositions? For the unbeliever, it will be some authority for reasoning other than the word of God, while for the believer it is God's revelation.”
― Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis