Bahnsen Quotes

A god or revelation capable of proof or rational verification by an autonomous man would be worthless. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

By starting independently of submission to the truth and direction of Christ's Word, we shall never end our arguments anywhere but independently of Christ. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

The Word of God is a seamless garment, and men who deny its law deny its eschatology also, and are deprived of God's power. It is not surprising, therefore, that this is an era of impotence for the church. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

Since the fall of man was ethical in character (not metaphysical) the unregenerate and regenerate share the facts of the world and the rules of thought, but their interpretation and use of them are far from neutral. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

When an apologist attempts to be autonomous in his reasoned argumentation he indicates that he considers God to be less certain than his own existence and that he places greater credence in his independent reasoning than in God's Word. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

The teaching of Colossians 2:3-8 is unambiguous. ALL knowledge (note: not simply knowledge of "religious" matters is to be found in Christ. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

In the nature of the case, the best witness to God's existence, the truth of His revelation, and the basis of a genuinely sound defense of the Christian faith would be God Himself. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

To reject revelational epistemology is to commit yourself to defending the truth of autonomous epistemology. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

Most philosophers do not want intellectual matters to reduce to a question of morality (obedience or rebellion to God's Word). They want to hold the intellect or reason to be above matters of moral volition. They hold that truth is obtainable and testable no matter what ethical condition the thinker is in.
Hence, they maintain that all disputes must be rationally resolvable, and a rational case for a philosophic position relies on a valid chain of discursive argumentation that takes us back to incontestable first principles or facts. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

We must not defend our message (that Christ's Word is self-attesting and possessing ultimate authority from the Lord) with a method that works counter to it- by claiming an ultimate epistemological standard outside of Christ's Word of truth. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

Non-presuppositional defenses of the faith tend to be too concessive to the unbeliever's aim and aim to simply show Christianity as probably true. They do not leave the unbeliever "without excuse," but suggest implicitly that he has the prerogative and ability to stand in judgement over God's own Word. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

God either rules as sovereign in interpretation over *all* areas of life or none. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

Without faith, there is no proper understanding by which a man can judge. As Augustine well said, 'I believe in order to understand'. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

There is no environment where man can flee to escape the revelational presence of God (Ps. 139:8). ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

When someone's paradigm changes, the world itself changes with it. So "facts" are only facts *for a system* or paradigm. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

With its continued dismissal of the law of God in ethics, Fundamentalism expressed both a "spiritualized" form of situational ethics and a "Christianly submissive" statism. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

Of all the wicked heresies and threatening movements facing the church in our day, when Westminster Seminary finally organized their faculty to write something in unison, they gave their determined political efforts not to fight socialism, not to fight homosexuality, not abortion, not crime and mayhem in our society, not subjectivism in theology, not dispensationalism, not cultural relativism, not licentiousness, not defection from the New Testament, not defection from the Westminster Confession of Faith, all of which are out there and they can give their legitimate efforts to ... boy the thing they had to write about was theonomy! How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he doesn't see the problem? ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

Faith in the self-attesting Christ of Scripture is the beginning, not the end result of wisdom. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

By reversing the proper order of things, the non-presuppositional apologist sees submission to God's Word as secondary, rather than primary, sees demonstration as the basis for faith, sees independent argumentation rather than the Holy Spirit as the source of conviction, and therefore advances the destruction of his own defense of the faith. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen