“The Thoughts of the Righteous are just, but the counsels of the wicked are deceitful” (Prov. 12:5; NASB).1
“Hence the Christian alternative to the hopelessness of autonomous reasoning is revelational epistemology or ‘analogical thinking.’ This requires beginning with God’s Word as the most certain truth available to man and basing all reasoning upon it.” –Greg L. Bahnsen2
“To act analogically implies the recognition that one is a creature of God. If man is a creature of God, he must, to think truly and to act truly, think and act analogically. Man is created as an analogue of God.” –Cornelius Van Til3
“True freedom for man consists in self-conscious, analogical activity. If man freely recognizes the fact that back of his created character lies the eternal character and plan of God, if man freely recognizes that his every moral act presupposes back of it this same limited God, he will be free indeed.” –Cornelius Van Til4
Preface:
When it comes to decisions in life, we all have a starting point or a point of reference that we assume at the outset. It is a faith5 based effort. For our starting premise (what we presuppose) is that thing we trust in and lean upon during every decision, every conflict, every thought and activity. Not only is this an undeniable fact, but the other aspect of this truth is that we defend our position based upon that same starting point. And when I say “defend” I mean precisely that. We fight for our beliefs and the conclusions that we draw from them. People like to pretend they are neutral observers and interpreters of reality, but we aren’t. This is proven by how eagerly we fight to preserve that which we hold to; even our opinions can become etched in stone.
There is something else that we do regularly. We think analogously. Not a very becoming word, I know, but an appropriate one nonetheless. An analogy is that which describes like things and the seeming relationships they share. They are not exact tit-for-tat representations, but the underlying principles or connections we make through them are—or, I suppose—can be. What I share below is an analogical expression of thought that I developed a few years back while working on my Doctor of Ministry.
Most professing Christians are very familiar with the historical narrative of David and Goliath. This subject has been used in many lessons and sermons for probably as long as the story has been retold. What I observed in the details of the narrative (apart from the primary intention of its retelling) is an analogical comparison one might draw between two very different forms of Christian Apologetics: Presuppositionalism vs. Evidentialism. As time has passed I have noted other possibilities where we might use this biblical text analogically.
Let me start with my initial thoughts in light of apologetics and as this thing unfolds, perhaps branch out into other areas where further possibilities might take root. For the uninitiated apologetics from a Christian perspective deals with the defense or argument for the Christian faith. Apologetics is a mode of fighting for one’s position. An effective apologetic is determined by its starting position; the first and final standard of appeal (e.g., 1 Pet 3:15, “But sanctify Christ as Lord…”). And, as a creature created in the image of the Triune God of Scripture, who do you suppose that our thoughts and actions are supposed to follow after (i.e., reflect)?
In what follows, I will provide a flowing narrative of the biblical account recorded for us in 1 Samuel 17. It is suggested (although, not required) that you read through the material provided in the biblical narrative first before going any further here). As you do read through this article and reflect on the events recorded about that fateful day (cf. 1 Sam. 17), note the underlying starting points (presuppositions) of the individuals there. Do they look at the situation in light of what God has stated and promised6, or do they judge things in light of some other guiding principle? From where does their thinking start, and how does their action come about as a result? At various times I will stop and consider these things on my own, offering my own thoughts as I see fit.
The Panoramic view…
In the midst of the valley a stream ran through with stones smooth for the throwing. An army was encamped on each side of the opposing mountains; the men of Israel on one side and the men of Philistia on the other. Two nations representing two gods ready to battle it out before the cosmos.
Every day the Philistine champion would stand on his rock and proclaim a taunt to the army of Israel (cf. Deut. 32:31). In his heart Goliath was convinced that he stood prepared for victory. What could Israel throw at him that stood a chance of shaking him from his foundation? He was confident that no one could rob him of the glory due him. Without question the man was a physical specimen to behold; “a warrior from his youth” (1 Sam. 17:33), trained and tested in the art of war.
Reactionary view…
The men of Israel heard Goliath’s taunt. They saw his monstrous size. The way he was fit for battle. The size of his weaponry. The arrogance he bestowed. The men of Israel heard the mocking of Goliath and they were fearful. From the greatest among them to the least; from the king to the young soldier they all cowered in fear (cf. 1 Sam. 17:11, 24). All save one.
Yet, there was a young man that viewed the matter differently from his elders and peers. When he heard the boasting of the Philistinian behemoth something else stirred in his heart rather than fear. What this young man heard enraged him. A fire began to burn in his belly. He began to inquire from all that would answer him what the king had said he would do for the one who willingly took up the challenge.
The soldiers of Israel knew that it was pointless. Saul, the king, likewise feared the repercussions of joining in battle against this mighty Philistine warrior. No doubt the Philistines were likewise convinced that if any were to take up the challenge of Goliath it was already a foregone conclusion as to what the outcome would be. Hands down, any fool that thought to entangle this man of war on the battlefield, would quickly find out that his goose was cooked. The funeral dirge would soon be playing over that zealot’s grave.
Everyone knew this except David the young shepherd, the youngest of Jesse’s sons from the tribe of Judah. A Bethlehemite.
Into the brink…
Down he went to the valley floor. After picking up some choice stones from the brook—five in all—he walked forward to meet the challenger’s demand. David did not wear heavy armor. He did not carry a sword. He had no training with such armaments. Instead he wore his shepherd’s garb, taking with him his crook and his sling with his chosen stones in his leather pouch slung about his waist. If fighting was going to be done that day, it was going to be done with what he knew. His clothing was reflective of the inner confidence that he had. Just as he had slain lion and bear that dared attack his flock, he would soon deal with this Philistine in like manner who dared assault the Lord’s flock.
The exchange…
All eyes were focused on him as he approached Goliath. Upon seeing David, Goliath was incensed. He shouted,
"Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?' ...Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field" (1 Sam. 17:43, 44).
David responded:
"You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord's and He will give you into out hands" (1 Sam. 17:45-47).
At this Goliath thought to move upon David, but David jumped at the opportunity and ran towards his enemy. On the side lines watching this whole event unfold was the army of Philistia, the army of Israel, and king Saul along with his general Abner. To Abner the king of Israel poses this question:
"Abner whose son is this young man?" (1 Sam. 17:55a).
To which Abner replies,
"By your life, O king, I do not know" (1 Sam. 17:55b).
The turn…
How you start something will play an important role in how you finish. One of the intriguing things for me is the manner in which people argue their position. Certain things are assumed at the forefront of the case being made. This is true of every individual who presents his or her case.
We live in a society here in the West that likes to assume that no one can say for sure that they are right. Or, that their way is correct. And yet, it is claimed with an air of authority that the position stated is correct, even though they too are guilty of presupposing what they have articulated.
No one argues for, or fights for a position, that they do not believe in or adhere to. The argument that “no one really knows” is a form of philosophic subterfuge that attempts to silence opposition. All the while it smuggles in the idea that the deniers of such realities are in fact the only ones who are correct, right in their belief, possessing knowledge that others lack.
Or put another way using the words of Doug Wilson,
“Arrogance is the sin of assuming yourself to be in the right without warrant from the Word of God. In other words, we must make our standard explicit, or we will run ourselves into hopeless contradictions. This is because everyone in the world always believes that he is right. This is part of the human condition. In other words, I always believe that I am right. This is not the same thing as believing that I am always right. I know that I have often been wrong. Nevertheless, I, along with every one else in the world, always believe…that I am right. No one ever said that he was convinced that thus and such was the case, but that he was ‘not’ convinced that it was the case. So when someone comes to rebuke me for always thinking I am right, is he coming with this rebuke because he thinks he is wrong about it?”7
We are to act in a specific way in this world The way we act is determined by how we think, and how we think is dependent upon what we appeal to as the fountain head of our knowledge. As such there is a certain circularity to every case presented, every argument levied, and every truth claim touted; but, not all circles are equal. Not all circles are void of being self-destructible. For not all standards are truly the rock they profess to be.
No Neutrality…
Often times people within the folds of the Church will fall into acting as if there is a neutral ground. A place where we can leave our religious thought behind for a moment as we work together with others to consider the evidence and see what is and what may be.
Sometimes this is done because the outside world demands it be so. From their vantage point, being neutral is sophisticated. It demonstrates a workable knowledge about the world in which we live.
Sometimes this is done because those within the Church want to look acceptable to the surrounding populace. No one likes an oddball, and well, professing Christians don’t feel comfortable being labeled as outside the current norm. Therefore, they adopt the premise of unbelieving thought that states “if we are going to reach others then we want to be reasonable, look reasonable, and not go too far to one extreme because that might offend, and push away those we are trying to reach.”
This is one of the things that I find so interesting about the historical retelling of David’s fight with Goliath. Everyone saw the evidence. Everyone was convinced by what they saw. And, everyone questioned the sanity of the one who dared to defy it.
Goliath was 9’9″ tall. He was a monster of a man by any standard. His armor and weaponry alone was more than what one man could typically carry around with ease, let alone use it proficiently.
Everyone saw this. Everyone accepted this. They all knew it to be true. They looked at the available evidence and they drew their conclusion, and were convinced that their way of seeing the matter was the only correct one.
The Philistines were convinced that no one could beat Goliath. The Israelites were convinced that no one could beat Goliath. The king of Israel, the warrior Saul also believed that defeating Goliath in battle was an impossibility and a grievous error in judgment for any who dared deny this truth.
Everybody except David.
Neutrality demands that we leave God out of the equation. No matter what we are doing in this world. Whether it is a career decision. Whether it is a matter of spousal life. An investment opportunity. A Pandemic. The purchasing or selling of a home. The settling of our affairs after a dramatic event in our life. All of these important life decisions must be settled without bringing in God or His Word. If we are to reason through something logically, correctly, it is argued either out loud or in the deep recesses of our minds that God must be left out of the equation.
Evidence through the corrective lens…
Why did David see the matter differently? What set him apart from the rest of the witnesses there that day? Did he see something that the others did not? He looked at the same evidence as everyone else and yet drew an entirely different conclusion… why?
Because when David looked at the evidence before him he understood it to be devoid of meaning if God was not in it. Without the God of Israel—the God of the Bible—the scene before him made no sense. He knew that he could not approach the problem of Goliath from a neutral vantage point–that is, a point of view that leaves God out of it. David comprehended that if any of this were to have meaning, God was to be the answer for it. God made sense of what he was witnessing. God not only made sense of the situation, of the available evidences, but it was God that provided the correct perspective; the correct way to interpret the way through this challenging moment in history. Through the Lord God came the victory of standing on the right side of history.
Something to note…
One of the things that I believe we need to note about this entire interaction, the complete lead up to the war between David and Goliath in the valley, is not only how David responded—which set him apart from the rest of his peers and elders—but what was the motivating factor in all of this. He fought for God’s honor. He fought for his brethren, for his king because he wanted them to see, to “know for certain” (Acts 2:36) that there is a God in Israel and He is the true cause of the outcome historically.
David’s position on the battle field was distinct from all others in that his starting point was the God of Scripture, the God of whom he wrote ballads and offered up prayers. David had read what God had done in the past through those that had passed before. No doubt he knew of the history of the judges and the courage and strength of men like Joshua and Caleb, and the insurmountable odds that Samson faced in his warring with the Philistines. All of which motivated him to act in the moment with a display of strength and courage that stunned all on that fateful day.
When we speak of Christian apologetics we speak of the defense of the Christian faith. Although that sort of fight is an intellectual one (a verbal one) nonetheless, it too is a form of warfare. So while it may be argued that David fought with physical weapons, the analogical truth is that his fight with Goliath the giant of Philistia was in principle the same sort of fight based upon the same guiding principle that equips the man (or woman) of God to speak with authority in opposition to all who oppose the knowledge of our Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 10:3-5).
As Bahnsen notes,
“Exclusive loyalty belongs to the Lord, and hence His Word must never be doubted or tried… The Lord’s word must be presupposed and obeyed in everything we do–even apologetics.”8
All matters of life are meant to be lived out in such a fashion. The battle of David and Goliath is not just about the battle of two historic giants but a battle of the gods that they represented. Goliath seemed to have all the physical characteristics needed to win, and yet it was David that walked away victorious. This sort of victory is assured to Christians. Not just in some far off land beyond the sky and human imagination, but the here and now. It’s a both/and, not an either/or.
ENDNOTES:
1All biblical references are of the New American Standard Bible (NASB).
2 Greg L. Bahnsen, Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended, edited by Joel McDurmon(Powder Springs, GA & Nacogdoches, TX: American Vision Press & Covenant Media Press, [2008], 2011), 29
3 Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Ethics, Vol 3 (Phillpsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, [1970],1980), 31.
4 Ibid., 32.
5Faith, properly defined, is trust or confidence in something or someone. It is a conviction held with certainty, not a hope that merely wishes, but a hope that is immovable.
6Being a historical narrative there is not prescription from the Lord in this passage. The details are descriptive in nature. They tell of the characters and the thoughts and actions of those involved, but no criticism of right versus wrong is given. Those things must be judged (discerned) based on previous revelation—i.e., “What does God say about how his people are to thinkn and act in a given situation?”
7Doug Wilson, A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2003), 25, 26. Italics in original. Emphasis added.
8Bahnsen, Presuppositional Apologetics, 38.
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