Every system of thought must begin with certain first principles on which the rest of the system is based. If the first principle of a system is self-contradictory, too narrow, or otherwise inadequate, then the system fails at the starting point, and the rest of the system crumbles. Paul has been converted by the sovereign grace of God, and thus he has adopted biblical revelation as the foundation or first principle of his system of thought. Compared to those of the non-Christian philosophers, Paul's first principle is not merely a different one of the same kind, but it is of a different kind altogether.
Sinful man builds his system of thought on a man-centered foundation with the assumption that he can obtain knowledge of the truth by his own power. But Paul rejects the antiChristian assumptions of human autonomy and sufficiency; rather, he teaches that man is bound by mental finitude and moral depravity. The non-Christian is trapped by his inferior intelligence and evil disposition. If man is to know the truth – any truth – he must depend on God. Christian epistemology is superior because instead of trying to find out the truth by our own power when we have no such power, it accepts biblical revelation as the only way to ground and obtain any knowledge. Non-Christian philosophy is founded on human speculation – wild guesswork and fantasy – but Christian philosophy is founded on divine revelation. In non-Christian philosophy man pretends to find the truth by his own power, but in Christian philosophy the omniscient God tells us the truth, making it plain by his omnipotence.
Following the apostle Paul, when we confront non-Christian belief systems today, we do not need to begin by accepting their first principles or basic assumptions, since these are the very premises that we are arguing against. Instead, by demonstrating the failure of nonChristian religions and philosophies, and by holding forth the self-authenticating revelation of Scripture, we confidently declare to unbelievers the truth about God. They will try to force us to accept their presuppositions, and they will try to bully us with empty arguments and sarcastic insults, but if we can show that their presuppositions make knowledge impossible and lead to absurd conclusions, why must we accept them? By their presuppositions, they can know nothing, but by divine revelation, we can know the truth about God, about his creation and his commands, and receive the knowledge that leads to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
When we take this approach to apologetics and evangelism, we avoid the mistake of pitting our mere human wisdom against their mere human wisdom; rather, we are pitting the wisdom of God against the wisdom of man. They may think that the gospel is foolishness, but even the "foolishness" of God is greater than the wisdom of man (1 Corinthians 1:25), and there is no real contest between the two. Divine revelation will always be superior to human speculation at every point and on every issue. We who profess the Christian faith must confidently rely on the content of Scripture; it is able to tear down all non-Christian religions and philosophies, exposing them to be sinful attempts to know truth without submitting to God. Therefore, we announce that the Christian worldview has an absolute monopoly on truth, and that every non-Christian religion and philosophy is false. As it is written, "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31).
Paul does not "dialogue" with the Athenians to see what they can learn from each other. He has no respect for their religions and philosophies. Instead, he says, "What you do not know, I am going to tell you," and he proceeds to tell them in verse 24. Although what follows is almost certainly a condensed version of Paul's speech, it contains enough to inform us of the content and scope of what he says, from which we can derive a biblical approach to apologetics and evangelism.
Paul first underscores the ignorance of the non-Christians, and in contrast, he claims to speak from a position of knowledge and authority. After this, he moves on to address the nature of God and the nature of creation – that is, he expounds on the biblical view of metaphysics, or the theory of reality. He begins by saying, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands" (v. 24).
Contrary to the philosophy of the Athenians, the world – not just the planet earth, but the kosmos, or the entire universe – and everything in it have not always been in existence; rather, this one God that Paul preaches created the universe and everything in it. Against the Epicureans, Paul declares that the universe was not formed by the random collision and combination of ever-existing atoms. Against the Stoics, Paul declares that God and the universe are not identical, but that God is distinct from the universe, and that this God does not only animate the universe, but he created the universe.
Contrary to the religion of the Athenians, there is not a god for this and a god for that. There is not a god for war, a different god for love, a different god for wisdom, and a different god for harvest. Rather, this one God that Paul preaches is the Lord of hosts, and the Lord who provides. He is love and he is wisdom, so that there is no true love and wisdom apart from him. He is "the Lord of heaven and earth," the kurio, the possessor of all that exists, the ruler of every sphere of physical existence and intellectual contemplation. This is the God that the Athenians did not know, and since this true God is the sole deity, the mere fact that they worshiped other "gods" necessarily implies that they were not worshiping this true God.
God is transcendent, meaning that he is distinct from the universe, although he is also immanent, since he has created the universe, and now sustains it and causes every event in it. On the other hand, the mythological gods of the Athenians were part of the universe. Contrary to this, Paul states that the true God "does not live in temples built by hands" (v. 24), and that "he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything" (v. 25). Paul deals with the nature of God with his particular emphasis because he is addressing the Greek popular religions in particular. The rest of the Bible provides us with enough information to know that our view of God disagrees with all non-Christian religions and philosophies, and we need to adapt our remarks to them when we address them in order to make the disagreements apparent. Of course we contradict the atheists and the Hindus on their views of God, but even some professing Christians deny that we radically differ with the Mormons and the Muslims. These people are ignorant of both Christian theology, which condemns all other religions, and non-Christian religions, which contradict biblical revelation on all major points.
The Mormons are not even monotheistic, claiming that Elohim is the god of only this world, that there are many gods for many different worlds, and that a man's "salvation" is his attainment of godhood to rule a particular world. They make Elohim and Jehovah into different entities, so that Jesus is Jehovah, who was created by the sexual union between Elohim and Mary. Christians may chuckle at the Mormon claim that the Garden of Eden was located in what is now Independence, Missouri, but when they make Satan the brother of Jesus, both Christians and non-Christians ought to have enough sense to note the differences between Christianity and Mormonism. But of course stupid people still insist that the two are in essential agreement. Doubtless some Mormons will say that this is a misrepresentation of their beliefs, but they probably do not know what Mormonism really teaches.43 In any case, since the Christian faith has been "once for all entrusted to the saints" (Jude 3), then it is not subject to revisions or additions; therefore, Joseph Smith was a false prophet. Will the Mormon agree with this assessment? If not, Christianity is not in agreement with Mormonism.
As for Islam, Allah is certainly not the same as the God that the Bible describes. The person who says that Allah is just another name for the Christian God must also show that Allah is a trinity, because this is what Christians affirm, that God is one in terms of godhood and three in terms of personhood, that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all participate fully in the divine attributes. No true Muslim agrees with this. In addition, Robert Morey argues that Allah was in fact a pagan moon god.44
Because Muslims consider the Hadith just as inspired and authoritative as the Koran, they must therefore venerate its teaching about Muhammad's psychological obsession with urine and feces. In vol. 1, chap. 57, no. 215 and vol. 2, no. 443, Muhammad says that people who soil themselves with urine will be tortured by hellfire, but a contradiction occurs in vol. 1, no. 234, when he ordered people to drink the milk and urine of camels as medicine. Muslims must accept and defend the claims that Adam was ninety feet tall (vol. 4, no. 543), that "Satan stays in the upper part of the nose all night" (vol. 4, no. 516), that Satan urinates into the ears of those who fall asleep during prayer (vol. 2, no. 245), that Allah will refuse to hear those who pass wind during prayer (vol. 1, no. 628; vol. 9, no. 86), and Allah will reject your prayers if you have bad breath (vol. 1, nos. 812, 813, 814, 815; vol. 7, nos. 362, 363), among other strange and vulgar teachings.45
It is true that some professing Muslims, probably embarrassed by the Hadith, choose to reject its status as divinely inspired. But when the discussion is about whether Christianity agrees with Islam, the Koran alone supplies enough information to establish radical differences between the views of the two religions on all major doctrines, such as the nature of God, the status of Jesus Christ, and the way of salvation. I have already mentioned the Trinity as an example – Christians insist on it, but Muslims reject it. No one can say that the two religions worship the same God.
Since this study is not specifically about Islam, we will not document its many problems here; nevertheless, we will mention one error in the Koran about the Trinity, since we have already brought up the topic. Muhammad (Sura 5:73-75, 116) thought that Christians worshiped three gods: the Father, the Mother (Mary), and the Son (Jesus). The Koran makes the mistake of saying that Christians believe Jesus to be the "Son" of God in the sense that he was the product of sexual relation between the "Father" God and Mary. However, the Bible affirms that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Christ. If Muhammad was a prophet of God, we would expect him to at least understand the basic doctrines of Christianity when he commented on it.46
Although some professing Muslims are also embarrassed by the Koran, so that they reject both the Koran and the Hadith as divinely inspired, they should not be called true Muslims, just as professing Christians who reject the Bible are not true Christians. In cases where professing adherents to a religion reject the official authority of that religion, they are not true adherents to that religion, and we must deal with them as individuals and ask about their personal beliefs. Our approach to apologetics and evangelism toward them is the same, so that unless they are already true Christians and explicitly biblical in their worldview, their beliefs concerning all major issues will contradict biblical revelation, and ultimately the conflict will be settled on the presuppositional level.
Every attempt to rob Christianity of its uniqueness by allegedly exposing (but in reality imposing) its similarities with other worldviews, philosophies, and religions have been refuted.47 But the spirit of Babel lives on, and so non-Christians (including false Christians) continue to force incompatible worldviews together. Deep down in their minds they know that Christianity is the only truth, but they think that if they can neutralize the biblical worldview, they will not have to obey the only true God or confront his revelation. As John the apostle writes, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed" (John 3:19- 20). To achieve unity at the expense of their rationality or even their sanity seems to be a small price to these people, but in the end it will cost much more than that, because they are still sinful men, and they will be condemned to suffer extreme torment in hell forever.
43 An adherent of a non-Christian religion may not know the official teachings of his own religion. When you tell him the ridiculous things that his religion teaches, he may say that you have misrepresented it, not because he really knows what his own religion teaches, but because the official doctrines of his religion seem ridiculous even to him, and thus he assumes that his religion cannot possibly teach what you allege that it teaches. When this happens, then you should either cite the official authority of his religion, or challenge his personal beliefs. Of course, most professing Christians also lack knowledge of Christianity, and this is why theological education must be our first priority.
44 Robert Morey, The Islamic Invasion; Christian Scholars Press, 1992; p. 211-218.
46 One explanation of Muhammad's misunderstandings on the Christian faith is that he had consulted extrabiblical sources that were heretical from the Christian perspective, and mistakenly thought that they represented the Christian faith. But that means he was not infallible, and that he was a false prophet. The Koran contains many errors about secular history, Jewish history and religion, Christian history and religion, as well as many self-contradictions.
47 See James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door; Ronald H. Nash, The Gospel and The Greeks; Fritz Ridenour, So What's the Difference?
Vincent Cheung, Presuppositional Confrontations (2010), p. 37-41.
