Worldview Suppression: Romans 1 and Apologetics
From my recent reading (Challies 2018 Reading Challenge) and Reformed theology conference lectures comes an apologetics study of Romans 1. What do general revelation and suppression really look like, in our 21st century post-Christian world? This question is addressed in Scott Oliphint’s lecture from the 2018 Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology (theme Spirit of the Age: Age of the Spirit), Workshop 4: The Anatomy of Unbelief. Oliphint is always interesting to listen to; I enjoyed listening to his lectures last fall, in Reformed Forum’s conference on the Reformation and Apologetics.
This 2018 conference lecture provides commentary on Romans 1 and suppression, and what that involves — what truth is suppressed? His invisible attributes; His eternal power and His divine nature – and the wrath, the judgment that comes as a result (Romans 1 verses 24 through 32). Oliphint also recounts his recent experience with a graduate level Hegel philosophy course. Throughout the course, until the very end, the students were kept in suspense: what is Hegel’s “absolute”? The expert didn’t know, and the expert admitted that he thinks Hegel himself didn’t know what it was.
Philosophers are nothing new, and Paul in Romans 1 was dealing with the same type of thing from the Greek philosophers of his day. Yet their ideas about reality are only theoretical and do not work in the real world. Objective truth is there, facing us every day in the external world. We cannot arbitrarily ignore and re-interpret reality to decide that a red light means ‘go’ and a green light means ‘stop’. A chair lifted up and about to hit your face is a real threat that cannot be ignored.
Another interesting point Oliphint noted, was observed by Jonathan Edwards. We often hear that hell is the absence of God. Yet this cannot be; by His very nature, God is everywhere, omnipresent–including in hell itself. Instead, hell is the ever-continuous presence, in wrath, of the God that the people there despise and hate.
My recent reading includes a past Kindle deal that also addresses this subject of Romans 1, suppression, and the limitations of non-Christian worldviews which don’t work in the real world: Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes , by Nancy Pearcey. Suppression involves focusing on one part of reality and making it the full truth – and ignoring the parts of reality that don’t “fit” within the box. Following an outline of Romans 1, Pearcey presents five points to help Christians identify and respond to worldview suppression, with examples from Hegel, materialism and other philosophies.
- Identify the idol.
- Identify the idol’s reductionism
- Test the idol: does it contradict what we know about the world?
- Test the idol: does it contradict itself?
- Replace the idol: make the case for Christianity.
Many examples are provided (with the actual quotes) from secular scientists and philosophers who admit that they really can’t live with the ideas they come up with about reality, such as this section about materialism:
When it reduces humans to complex biochemical machines, what sticks out of the box? Free will. The power of choice. The ability to make decisions. These are dismissed as illusions. Yet in practice, we cannot live without making choices from the moment we wake up every morning. Free will is part of undeniable, inescapable human experience—which means it is part of general revelation. Therefore the materialist view of humanity does not fit reality as we experience it.
When we see statements about how “we cannot live with” a view, that is worldview suppression. Through the five principles, we can identify the specific type of suppression – and respond to it, to those who present such ideas, with the truth of Christianity.
Oliphint’s lecture is an excellent summary overview of apologetics related to Romans 1. Pearcey’s book provides more details and examples, with special emphasis on the experience of college students who leave home as Christians and “lose their faith” when challenged by anti-Christians in the academic university setting.
Scripture Thoughts 
Thanks for sharing what you learn from lecutres and reading related to Presuppositional apologetics
Thanks for the comment, Slimjim. It’s an interesting topic to study, and I find it helpful to post about the resources, for future reference.
I’m planning to share your post in our regular Presup Round Up this Sunday.
Thanks!
Very interesting, Lynda and well written.
What exactly does the word “reductionism” mean in point #2 of Nancy Pearcey’s 5 principles? Thanks.
Well… I guess I should have looked it up…. I guess this is pretty much what it means?
“Reductionism is an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things.”
Yes, that’s basically it… in philosophical terms, her explanation is: “reducing a phenomenon from a higher or more complex level of reality to a lower, simpler, less complex level—usually in order to debunk or discredit it.” Examples include “people saying that Christianity is nothing but an emotional crutch; or that ideas are nothing but products of chemical reactions in our brains.” Also Darwinian evolution / naturalism – all living things can be explained by physics and chemistry processes.