143 Apologetics Conference 1: The Problem of Privatization (Jerry Wierwille)

Today we are starting something new. I’m very excited to present to you in its entirety, the apologetics conference held in Paducah, KY last June. We’ve got a great line up of speakers for you including Jerry Wierwille, myself, Kenny Willenburg, Dale Tuggy, Kegan Chandler, and John Truitt.

It was a wonderful time of meeting people and working together to figure out ways of reaching the millennial generation with the gospel. As it turned out, a great majority of the presentations focused on understanding the post-modern worldview. This was so helpful, because it’s nearly impossible to discuss important issues if both people are unaware of the fact that they are each coming from incompatible worldviews. Although, for many of us, our natural inclination is to show someone why their underlying assumptions are invalid, a better starting point for evangelism is to work within their post-modern outlook to show how attractive and awesome the gospel is.

In this first presentation, Jerry Wierwille covers a brief history of how major philosophers initiated a movement that led to sequestering away of faith as something personal and private.  Then he shares how to broach spiritual topics with secular people around us. His talk is relatively short, only 34 minutes long, but I also included the questions and comments, which went for another half hour.

—— Notes ——

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• early 1600s
• cogito ergo sum
• put himself at the center of reality rather than God
• previously, scientists located God at the center of the universe and from there derived his laws
• divided mind from matter

 

John Locke (1632-1704)

• empiricism
• sense perception is the basis for true knowledge/reality

 

David Hume (1711-1776)

• skepticism
• anything not proven using scientific method is not verifiable

 

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

• appearances of forms
• absolute idealism
• law of non-contradiction
• freedom above nature

 

Georg Hegel (1770-1831)

• dialectic idealism
• thesis, antithesis, synthesis

 

value/fact divide

• religion relegated to the mind, but not objective

 

humanism

• manifestos in 1933, 1973, 2003
• progressive philosophy of life that w/o supernaturalism affirms our responsibility to lead ethical lives
• live well, fully
• values and ideals however carefully wrought are subject to change

1. knowledge derived by empirically
2.  humans are part of nature, the result of unguided evolution
3. ethics derived from trial and error, treat others as having inherent worth and dignity
4. life’s fulfillment found in wonders and joy of human existence
5. humans find meaning in relationships; want a world free of cruelty; differences resolved cooperatively w/o violence
6. working to better society maximizes happiness; support a just distribution of nature’s resources so as many as possible can enjoy a good life; human rights; civil liberties; civic duties to vote

• the responsibility for our lives is ours and ours alone

 

private life (values) ————————- public life (facts)

 

you can have beliefs, but they are private

• privatization is one of the main problems in our society for evangelism
• culture/public life must be devoid of religion
• you can believe what you want, but don’t tell me what to believe
• we all make our own truth
• called judgmental, traditionalist, intolerant