PAUL'S PURPOSE AT ATHENS AND THE PROBLEM OF COMMON GROUND
by R. K. McGregor Wright, ThM, PhD
A Discussion of the question of what kind of common ground with the secular mind is implied
by the Apostle Paul's Areopagus Address in Acts 17.
Originally read as a Paper at the Denver Reformed Round Table, August 1988, and revised for publication November 1993.
© 1996; As A Research Paper of the
AQUILA AND PRISCILLA STUDY CENTER
Ph. (423) 434 2188
CONTENTS
I. The Problem Defined.
II. World View in Collision.
III. The Methodology Implied.
IV. Common Ground Assumed, Not Sought.
V. A Paradigm Of Pre-evangelism?
VI. To Convict And To Convince.
VII. Paul's Methods Or Ours?
VIII. Conclusions
Bibliography
The Problem Defined
What was the Apostle Paul's apologetic methodology as he spoke before the Areopagus? Was it a search for common ground
on which, together with the Athenian philosophers, he could then approach the intellectual challenge of the Gospel with neutral
objectivity? Or was it some kind of confrontation in which two incompatible world views touched momentarily, found no
obvious bridge between themselves, and then fell apart again, never more to meet? Or is there some third position which picks
up the advantages of each of these views without their supposed disadvantages?
That this is a live question among Evangelicals today may be gathered not only from the most-used textbooks on apologetics, but
also from more popular publications. I once received through the mail a pamphlet called Common Ground which is distributed in
large numbers to evangelical churches by Search Ministries Inc. This group is concerned with equipping believers with useful
ideas and information about personal outreach, apologetics, and friendship evangelism. Their publications are always helpful, but
are usually limited to a rather traditionalist form of "evidentialist" apologetics. Rarely do they face the problem of competing world
views, based as they often are, on incompatible assumptions about God, Man, and salvation. The August '88 edition however,
took "Understanding Worldviews" as its topic. It followed roughly the outline found in James Sire's helpful IVP book The
Universe Next Door. The tract opened with the example of a Christian being set back unexpectedly by the sudden awareness
that the friend to whom he is witnessing is already possessed of a "world view" very different from his own, as reflected in his
pantheistic notion of God. Then, taking their cue from Paul's defense of the nature of God at Lystra (Acts 14:8-20), they moved
to a list of important world views mentioned by Sire, and made some useful suggestions about how to respond to world view issues.
I was struck however, by the problem implied by their final piece of advice; "What kinds of tools would you give to them" (that is,
to the non-Christians you are witnessing to) "that would help them consider Christianity from the vantage-point of their world view?"
It occurred to me that the unbeliever always and inevitably looks at Christianity and at everything else from the standpoint
of his own world view, so why would I want to “help him” to do this? Surely the problem in evangelism is more like trying to
get the unbeliever to look at things from the Christian point of view? Should we not be trying to get the unbeliever to see that on
the basis of his own world view, nothing makes much sense at all, including Christianity? What did the Search writer mean by
his question?
More remarkable still, Paul's encounter with the Greco-Roman world view in the Areopagus address in Acts 17 is not even
mentioned, while Acts 14 is cited when it only has three verses dealing with the pagan world view. Does Paul look more like he
is appealing to "common ground" in Acts 14 than he does in Acts 17? We could compare Acts 14:17 with Matt 5:45, and raise
the question of "common grace," but the Search article did not appeal to this doctrine either.
There is little doubt that the Areopagus Address is something of a puzzle to most Evangelicals as they read through Acts. It
certainly seems to lack the central themes of the usual Gospel message as commonly conceived. It makes no mention of the
Cross, or of the Atonement. There is no reference to being born again, or to faith in Christ, to justification, to the significance of
baptism, to the law-grace controversy, to the fulfillment of prophecy, or even to Paul's authority as an Apostle. Nevertheless, his
case does move from the nature of the true God to our responsibility as those beings who are morally answerable to him, and
finally to the need for particular salvation through a human Judge who has risen from the dead. The four systematic divisions of
Theology, Anthropology, Soteriology, and Eschatology are therefore touched on in their correct logical order. Could this pauline
presentation be a key to how the great Apostle wanted the early stages of evangelism to be done? Could we call it, with Francis
Schaeffer, "pre-evangelism?" What was its precise purpose?
Our central concern in this paper is to examine the contention that Paul sought to find and identify a "common ground" within
Greek thought, in order to "build a bridge" across which the Gospel could pass. Sir William Ramsey and others have speculated
that Paul not only tried to do this and failed, but also that he came to realize that his method of apologetics at Athens was a mistake,
and that he had changed his tactics by the time he got to Corinth in Acts 18. At Athens he had tried to speak "wisdom to the
wise," while at Corinth he decided to repudiate this method, and sought to preach only "Christ crucified" instead. The first two
chapters of 1 Corinthians would then reflect this change of heart. But is this scenario very likely?
Over against this odd theory, it will be the contention here that not only there is nothing in Acts 17 for the writer of 1 Corinthians
to repudiate, but rather the opposite. In both passages Paul opposes an autonomous Greek "wisdom." When preaching to
pagans, Paul assumed a definite type of "common ground," and far from trying to establish any kind of philosophical "bridge" for
the Gospel message, Paul was primarily concerned with setting forth a clear contrast between Paganism and the Gospel. Acts 17
therefore sets forth as clear a choice as possible between the Greco-Roman world view of the Athenian culture, and Paul's own
Christian view of Reality. In the Areopagus Address, we see just how complete was the contrast between the Demonic Theoria
and the rival Divine Theoria which Paul brought to Athens.
World Views in Collision
The occasion of Paul's appearance before the ancient and honorable council of the Areopagus is described in Acts 17:17-20.
While he was preaching "Jesus and the resurrection," certain Stoics and Epicureans demanded that he present his credentials to
the appropriate authorities, since some thought he was "a propagandist for foreign deities." The names Iesous and Anastasis are
male and female proper nouns in Greek and a superficial hearer might easily have thought that he was announcing a typical pair
of foreign gods, a male divinity and his female consort. Gods commonly went about in such pairs, even when they were only
symbols of philosophic abstractions. Be that as it may, Paul was certainly setting forth the risen Christ as the solution to the city's
problem of idolatry. And certainly the two most popular schools of philosophy, the Stoics and the Epicureans, had failed to wean
Athens from extreme superstition, although they had had three centuries to do it in. Neither Stoicism nor Epicureanism had any
solution to the problem of idolatry, a problem they were quite conscious of, and which they both exposed in their own philosophical
writings, as well as in their plays and poetry. Sophisticated Greeks actually thought that they were "enlightened" by Wisdom
herself, and were above the foolishness of idolatry. Paul, it seems, did not think so.
We shall now examine this confrontation, verse by verse. Recall that we are here looking for evidence of common ground and
"bridge-building."
Verse 22 Paul begins by saying that from his point of view, (theoreo means to behold, or view as a whole) the Athenians are
overwhelmingly religious, even "superstitious in everything." Religion seems to be the dominant influence in their lives. The Greek
adjective deisidaimonesterous has 19 letters and must be one of the longest words in the Greek New Testament. It is not very
flattering, and corresponds exactly to the Latin superstitiosus, and means extremely fearful of the gods. It was the term used
for "private superstitions" or ethnic religions. It is not enough to weaken the force of this word by rendering it "very religious" as
the RSV and other recent translations do. The term is decidedly not a compliment, even in 25:19, where the noun form refers
precisely to a contemptible ethnic religion (the Judaism of Paul's accusers) as distinct from reverence for the state religion. The
Greeks and Romans both distinguished between formal state religion and the private "superstitions" or religions of the masses, and
much disgust could be shown for ethnic religions when they conflicted with official formalities. This was one of the main causes
of contempt for Christians (and for the Jews before them) throughout the Empire, that they refused to bow to public idols. They
were therefore occasionally accused of "atheism" or rejection of the gods. Since the Epicureans were rather cynically "agnostic"
about the gods, believing them to be too high up the chain of existence to be interested in human affairs, while the Stoics believed
that their philosophy was a sophisticated substitute for popular superstition, it can hardly be claimed that Paul's opening gambit
was a good example of bridge-building! On the contrary, he puts his finger on a well-known sore spot straightaway -- that the
pagan philosophers had failed to diminish the abuses of idolatry in Greece, and their culture was still wholly given over to it, as
verse 16 indicates. Paul was enraged by its obvious dominance.
Verse 23 Paul opens his explanation by saying that he observed their "objects of worship" (they worshipped things, these people!)
The images were large and overpowering physical objects, for he says that he had to gaze up at them. Those of us who have
seen pictures or even the originals of Greek statues in museums have seen just a marble carving. The Greeks however, did not
leave the marble bare; they painted their images realistically to look like the real thing. Greek idols therefore combined the art of
the sculptor with that of the painter to produce a very powerful piece of art.
But one altar was devoted by an inscription "to an unknown god." This, he says, is self-confessed ignorance, which he is there to
correct. Far from sounding like a bridgebuilder seeking common ground, Paul has stated a very clear contrast, and set up the
Athenian religion for a broadside attack. The best the Hellenistic world can provide is about to be challenged on its own home
turf! One is reminded of Jesus' statement to the Samaritan woman in John 4:20-23, when she wanted to argue about which city
one should worship in; "You don't know what you are worshipping; salvation is of the Jews." If Paul had wanted to establish
philosophic common ground in the Hellenistic world view, he would better have begun by complimenting the Athenians on their
valid religious insights, and agreeing specifically with certain of their teachings. He could then have moved from the areas of
agreement to the more unique claims of the Gospel. In fact, he did the very opposite.
Verse 24 Not only is the true God knowable says Paul, but he is actually known as the Creator. God is not an unknowable Theion
(an indefinite divine Being) back behind the appearance of the world, as the Stoics thought, but contrary also to the Epicureans, he
is the sovereign Lord, the maker of "the Cosmos and everything in it." This shoots down Greek polytheism, in which various
phases of the world are made and ruled by various finite deities. And contrary to the Stoics, God is not merely the rational
principle immanent in an otherwise impersonal universe. On the contrary, he is the one infinite-personal character behind the very
meaning of the word "being." This offsets Greek pantheism, with its ultimately monistic presupposition that "All is One."
Instead, Paul starts where God's own interpretation of reality starts, with the Creator-creature distinction of Genesis 1:1. Both the
visible heavens and earth, and the invisible life of the human soul are God's. He is omnipresent, and therefore cannot be located
in a man-made temple. Localization of demonic manifestations was very important to Greek piety. Paul sets this aside as being
logically inconsistent with God's creatorial sovereignty over the space-time universe.
Verse 25 Worse still, Paul insists that what we contribute with our human efforts at worship is simply unnecessary. Contrary to
the Greek notion of the gods' needing our spiritual support and ministrations, Paul's God needs nothing. We can add nothing to
God's power or value by what we do. Paul is here dismissing the entire panoply of pagan liturgical and temple activity as useless
in the search for God. He indicates that God was utterly complete before he created the world, for he is the sole Origin of all
being, life, and meaning. In particular, this includes the entire human race.
Verse 26 The whole human race is a unity. Contrary to Greek mythology, all the races derive from one original human being;
we are not the physical offspring of a variety of gods who came to earth at various times in the heroic past. In addition, God has
sovereignly predetermined the structure and distribution of the migrations of the nations, even down to where they will finally live.
God controls history by his own predestination. Contrary to both Greek religion and Greek speculation, nothing happens by mere
chance, for God's plan and purpose is back of everything. This not only eliminates human free will as the Greeks understood it,
but also the free will of the gods themselves. These finite Greek gods have no power to influence the flow of Reality as
foreordained by the Creator.
Verse 27 There is a sovereignly predetermined purpose in all this. God's ontological support of the process of human
activity is in order that they might seek him. It is man who needs God, not God who needs man. It remains an open possibility
that at least some people might "feel after" God, and even "find him." All human beings have this potential, for surely every
human heart is accessible to a sovereign God. And far from only being found after a prolonged spiritual struggle or mystical
quest, God is "not far from every single one of us." The Epicureans in particular, were wrong about the gods having no interest in
human life. God is close to the individual, and can be known by anyone who wants to know the truth. There is apparently no
elitism in Paul's view of spirituality.
Paul's vision of reality was very different from the Greek outlook. Their tradition taught that there were three kinds of people, the
fleshly people, enmeshed in their material bodies (called the sarkikoi), the soulish or average natural people (the psuchikoi), and
the innately spiritual people (the pneumatikoi), who were the ones most likely to respond to higher truth. The fleshly were thought
of as hopeless, being slaves to a material existence. The soulish ones were difficult to convert, but they might come around if they
had enough opportunity and education. That is, they were worth pursuing, but one should not waste too much time on them.
The "spirituals" responded almost immediately, having more "logos" or "spirit" than the others. In contrast to this spiritual snobbery,
for the Apostle Paul there were only two kinds of people, the believers and the idolaters, the saved and the lost. He was clearly
committed to what Reformed theologians came to call the "free offer of the Gospel."
Verse 28 For Paul, God's omnipresent being is the ontological support for our finite existence from moment to moment, as
his epistles teach clearly. He quotes from the Greek poets in order to demonstrate their contradictory ideas, not because he
agrees with them. He quotes Aratus (a Stoic poet) "for we are even his offspring," in order to characterize the polytheism so
common in even the best Greek thought. It was widely believed that different races and types of mankind owed their differences
to their being descended from different deities who mated with humans, so creating the age of Heroes. Epimenides (an even
earlier authority appealed to by the Epicureans) supplies an often-quoted line, "in him we live and move and have our being," so
identifying the pantheism underlying so much of their popular worship. The quotes are rather cleverly used, because he quotes a
verse sounding polytheistic from a pantheist (the Stoic Aratus), and a verse sounding pantheistic from a polytheist (Epimenides) in
order to confute both parties. Paul was very capable of playing off one part of a hostile audience against another, as we observe
in Acts 23. He may be quoting poets rather than philosophers because the poets were better known; as it is in our own day, the
artists and poets mediated the ideas of the philosophers to the popular audience.
Paul could not possibly have agreed with the views of the divine nature expressed in either poets in their original context, for he
had already excluded these views in the previous few verses. Paul's interest is in showing from their own authorities that the
Greek views of God are self-contradictory. He is exposing the internal incoherence of Greek thought by playing polytheism off
against pantheism. More technically, he is forcing his audience to confront the "One-and-Many" problem as it applied to their
ultimate source of meaning, their gods. He demonstrates from their own literary sources that the world by its own wisdom, "knew
not God." No doubt there is a search for truth to be followed in Greek thought, and some Greeks must have had clear intimations
of what God must be like. Perhaps it may be a dubious "feeling after," and a very approximate "finding," but it was real enough in
the religious experience of paganism, and deserved the clarification which only a fresh theoria could provide. The Athenians
needed a completely new "beholding," an alternative "world view," in order to have a workable truth about God. Archimedes had
said that all he needed was "a place whereon to stand," (pou sto), and he could have moved the earth with a lever. But where
can a mere mortal stand to move the world, much less to grasp God? The Greek seeker is likewise looking for a fixed
reference-point in the flow of Being, but how can it be found in Heraclitus' ever-flowing river? Meanwhile, the discovery that
one's basic outlook is internally contradictory is a powerful reason for seriously considering another viewpoint.
Verse 29 Paul then proceeds to argue that the Greek theory and the Greek practice are also inconsistent with each other.
If our nature is derived from God, as his sons and daughters, how can God's nature be like these physical idols the Greeks adore?
"You made these things yourselves! How can an infinite and eternal Creator be compared with mere bits of his finite, temporal
creation? Idolatry is a crock! There is no great Scale of Being in which both God and the creation together participate! Mere
human meditation will not reach the true God." Paul is not only arguing that their worship reflects a lower view of God than their
theology would warrant, but also implies that the natural human tendency is to make a god in the image of human ideas. Starting
with man, we do not reach God, but we arrive finally at something even less than the worshiper himself. This is an important step
in Paul's thought, and exactly reflects the highly accusatory material of Romans 1.
Verse 30-31 Paul moves to a conclusion, reminding them on the way of the admitted ignorance he had started with. It is
really no wonder that the Greek world view and worship were so inconsistent, he says, for they were both based on ignorance.
The whole project of arguing from the creation to the nature of the Creator is a failure; "natural theology" does not work, even
thought there are revelatory implications in the structure and details of the Creation, sometimes referred to by theologians as
"general revelation," and referred to by Paul in Romans 1. The real solution to knowing God is to hear him identify himself to us
in a divine Word from himself, directly given as a historical event. God has announced that this ignorance of his real nature must
come to an end in a specific historical revelation, requiring not more speculation, but repentance before the sovereign Creator
himself. This revelation comes as an announced command to all men everywhere to repent, to change their minds about the
source of religious truth. The Truth is to be found in a specific historical Messiah, who was not even a Greek, let alone an
Athenian! And God has identified this particular man in time and space by the most startling miracle conceivable; by raising him
from the dead. The term 'apangello translated "commandeth" in the KJV, means to make a public announcement, such as the
proclamation of the legal decrees of a king or of the governor of a city, or the orders and commands of a general transmitted
through a subordinate officer. That is, God's revelation in Christ is an authoritative command that must be obeyed. Everyone
must change his mind about it all, and accept God's own interpretation of reality as their epistemological starting-point. Fear of the
Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, of Knowledge, and of Instruction (Prov 1:7, 9:10, 15:33), not a conclusion developed by the
autonomous Greek intellect.
Eschatology is found in all religions, but the Jewish tradition spoke of a coming Judgement Day foreordained by God himself, at
which his Messiah would judge the whole world. Thus Paul's religion was no national or localized superstitio, no merely
privatized opinion, but an all-embracing, comprehensive religious world vision, with a universal moral claim on all mankind, both
Jew and Gentile, (on "all men everywhere . . .in the inhabited earth.") The unity of the human race is a remarkable theme in this
sermon, and embraces not only the material on human origins in Genesis (such as 9:19) but the notations on human unity found in
the book of Revelation too ("earth-dwellers" in 3:10, etc.)
Epistemologically, God's verbal revelation is to be made the starting-point for answering the question of how we know reality.
Paul seeks to show the Athenians that they have begun in ignorance, and ended by worshipping objects made by their own hands.
Then, Ontologically, God himself as the Creator is the starting-point for understanding Being. There are only two levels
of being, not one; they are the Creator and his creation. Nothing exists outside these two categories.
Ethically, we are then told that God's own righteousness is to be the standard for judgement. Contrary to Socrates, the
Good is good because God himself is the standard; God does not approve of the Good because it is good independently of himself.
Finally, or Teleologically, God has had a purpose in it all. History is not merely a meaningless series of cyclic returns, for
all is moving towards the great historical climax. History is linear, not cyclic, and so God controls the future too! Time is moving
on from the Age of Ignorance to a coming Age of Truth, and you Athenians must move with it. Far from each immortal soul
being finally reabsorbed into the One (as Socrates imagined), everyone will be raised an individual with an immortal body to be
personally confronted by God in Jesus at the final judgement.
The reference to a resurrection of the body was the final straw for this sophisticated audience. At last it dawns on the listeners
what "anastasis" really is. This Resurrection is not a goddess, but a real event in history! In fact, it is the objective ground for
identifying God's Chosen One, a proof offered publicly to all. Against Greek analytical skepticism, Paul asserts that it is possible
to recognize an adequate ground of certainty, and this he identifies with the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The Greeks held that we are
part chaotic matter, and part immortal soul. The body tends toward decay, finally to be dropped altogether in death, as the soul
glides up the Chain of Being to immortal union with the unknowable divine One. The last thing the soul needs is to be tied to a
physical body again. For a true philosopher to point to a physical resurrection as a mark of divine approval was the height of
absurdity. The higher reaches of the evolving Chain of Being have no need of the material body. This is an error repeated over
and over again on Star Trek (both the original series and in the "New Generation") in which higher beings without physical bodies,
and barely distinguishable from demons, are always assumed to be more "evolved" than we mere humans are, with our dreadful
material bodies. In one episode, Captain Picard is actually addressed by a bodiless entity as an "ugly bag of mostly water"! This
quaintly literal description of a human body was intended to emphasize how far above us the entity was on the great scale of
evolving Being. Many of these "higher life-forms" are also presented as having evolved beyond good and evil. The same claim
was habitually made for the Greek deities.
Verse 32-33 At this point, Luke reminds us that the preaching of the Gospel is a divisive affair. He leaves us with an
important paradigm in his noting the three responses to the preaching. The first is derision; "This babbler is crazy after all." They
laughed and walked away. A second group realized that they had just encountered the most earth-shattering, comprehensive
intellectual challenge to the Greek Theoria ever heard in Athens, and they could not let it drop. They were captivated, threatened,
and puzzled all at once; "We will hear you again about this stuff" they guardedly said. But there was a third small group who
clung to Paul and believed. One was Dionysius of the Areopagus council itself. Another was probably a visiting foreigner, a
woman named Damaris, in town on business or pleasure. There were others, but not many. Sadly, Paul never had an occasion
to write a "Letter to the Athenians." But on that fateful day before the Areopagus, half a dozen among the hundreds of Athenians
heard a challenge which gripped them with irresistible power, and opened up to them an entirely different universe of reality. By
God's grace they stepped into a new and saving world view, and that forever. These were the third group, those that believed
and for them, the adventure of eternity had begun.
All preaching of the Gospel of Grace has ever since this time, divided the audience into these three groups, with small variations
and sub-categories. Apologetics, the clearer the distinction is made between Christian and non-christian world views, produces
the very same effect.
The Methodology Applied
No doubt Luke has given us only a brief summary of the full presentation which Paul would have made to the Athenians. Perhaps
Luke took notes, or Paul was later asked to give a summary. But we may be confident that the essence is all there, as to both
fact and argument.
First, Paul seeks to contrast the Hellenic world view with that of the Bible, with respect to God's nature (to Theion, verse 29), the
world's created dependence (verses 24-26) and our uniform moral responsibility (verses 30-31). He begins by showing that the
presuppositional under-structures of these two world visions are incompatible.
Second, Paul sought to make men's ethical divergence from God's character to be at the heart of the problem, not mere ignorance
or finitude. The issue is sin and this can only be addressed by changing one's mind about the ultimate ethical reference-point,
which is God in Christ as Judge. If sinners will not receive Christ as Judge and Savior now, they will be left with Christ as a
Judge only, in the future.
Third, Paul sought to show that the Christian world view focuses on two equally historical events, the past incarnation and death
of Christ on the one hand, and the future second coming of "this same Jesus" as final Judge. It is the resurrection that links these
together. Between these two events and moving towards the second, are all of mankind, whether Jews, Greeks, or Barbarians.
History is God's story before it is ours. The world's diversity manifests God's plan, and its unity reflects the coherence of his
creatorial sovereignty. Its future direction fulfills God's purpose comprehensively.
In the course of moving from God's nature to the status of the creation, and so on to the human dilemma, Paul contradicts at least
two dozen popular Hellenistic religious and philosophical opinions. Greek notions are challenged in the areas of existence
(ontology), knowledge (epistemology), moral action (ethics), and also with respect to the purpose of it all (teleology). The entire
structure of the Greco-Roman world view is meticulously subverted, and a coherent substitute is offered in its place. There is no
way to make these two theoriai, or visions of reality compatible. To accept the new one is necessarily to abandon the other.
The two systems have different sources; one is "divine," and the other "demonic." With incompatible presuppositions and
conflicting methodologies, they disagree about what "the facts" are, they lead to different practical lifestyles, and finally to
different expressions of worship.
Specifically, the Hellenic world view is internally inconsistent with itself in both its theory and its practice, and the practice does
not even reflect what truth there is in the illogical theory. That is, Paul applies the Coherence Test to Greek thought, and it fails.
Further, it cannot cope with either the facts of history (such as the unique life and death of Jesus), or the acts of God (such as
Christ's resurrection). That is, it stands in sad need of a divinely-given reference-point, a place to stand for handling the ancient
and vexed problem of how an ultimate unity can relate to an ultimate diversity. Paul therefore also made use of the
Correspondence Test.
Paul was not looking for a class of innately spiritual people to autonomously evaluate and accept his Gospel, to evaluate and
pass judgement on the truth of God. God commands all men every to "repent," not to "judge for themselves" autonomously.
He knows quite well that the fallen consciousness is making false judgements "for itself" every moment of the day. He therefore
spoke openly to all in the marketplace, and offered Christ freely to all. Anybody at all might be a potential convert. After all,
even a nasty little fanatical Jewish theological student could be thrown off his horse on the road to Damascus and brought to his
senses spiritually! Did not Paul know of such a case?
Paul's methodology in this address is primarily one of describing the contrast between his own world view with the non-christian
vision of reality as it happened to be expressed at that moment in history in the Hellenistic world view. He makes the basic
religious concepts of salvation and worship depend as personal responsibilities upon correct specific concepts of both the divine
and human nature, with the divine nature being the origin of the meaning of the human, and not vice versa, as Strato of
Lampsacus would have had it. Thus Paul also raises the issue of the Location of Ultimacy, which is the test of one's ultimate
Presuppositions.
Further, he is anxious to point out the self-contradictory nature of the non-christian world view as well as its inability to cope with
historical facts which tell against it. The non-christian world view is up against both logic and fact. It cannot bring them together,
and it cannot make them intelligible separately.
Again, the non-christian world view produces absurd results (such as idolatry) despite what degrees of sincerity and the desire for
God the heathen can muster. Heathen religion, far from lifting man up to connect with God, debases God to the level first of
human intellectual failure, then below man to animals, and below that again to material images. From this, the idolator proceeded
to violate his own body (Rom 1:24-26). This is the Test of Ethical Fulfillment.
The cause of this whole debacle is the non-Christian's fallen starting-point. Presuppositions function as one's ultimate
reference-point, and they control everything across the board, much like the rules in a game of chess. They predetermine what
is "possible" for every move on the board. The dilemma is that while not to have presuppositions is not to begin the interpretational
enterprise at all, to begin with unacknowledged axioms is quickly to become a slave to the unknown. One's presuppositions must
be knowable, they must actually be known, and they must be self-consistent. And since we all must begin with ignorance, we
must either get our axioms from God himself by revelation, or we must set up our own arbitrary absolutes. These absolutes will
then function for us like epistemological gods, and demand an obedience they do not deserve. Paul was happy to raise the
spectre of the test of Presuppositional Adequacy.
For the Apostle Paul, it is much more important that his hearers recognize that they have been significantly challenged, than that it
is to search out a "common ground" in their own views to build on. It is absolutely vital for this evangelist that his hearers know
that they have confronted a significantly different vision of reality when they turn their backs on Christianity, and that they know
what they are rejecting when they reject it. For Paul, preaching the Gospel must involve a real choice between alternatives, and
not just a comfortable intellectual adjustment along a common spectrum of mere probabilities.
Common Ground Assumed, Not Sought
There is an even more fundamental reason why Paul shows no interest in finding a "common ground" within the Athenian religious
culture, which we must now explore. Paul does not seek common ground because he already assumes a type of common
ground which is only understandable from within the Christian's Theoria. This Pauline perspective is made explicit in such
passages as Romans 1, and in those parts of the epistles which mention the intellectual results of sin, and the regeneration of the
intellect in the renewal of the image of God in the believer. Although we cannot give a full exposition of these issues now, the
following points are crucial;
1) All of us confront God in every fact and moment of awareness. We can neither escape his omnipresence, nor reach up to
apprehend the divine being. The movement to save us must come from God to us, and not from us to God. This is a corollary of
the doctrine of "grace alone." This, indeed, is the "Augustinian center of gravity" of the Reformation itself.
2) Salvation is a divine accomplishment, not just the result of a human struggle. It is by grace through faith in a
sufficient Savior, not the achievement of a religious or cultural elite. All need God's undeserved grace both to initiate and then to
consummate the drama of salvation. As Augustus Toplady's most famous hymn puts it, "Thou must save, and Thou alone."
3) All start out as rebels who must be subdued and turned around to face their Origin of Meaning, who is also their Judge.
The sinner must sooner or later confront God personally. If Christ is not received as Savior in this life, he will be met as Judge in
the next. These are the only alternatives in the long run, and we are unfaithful to our charge if we do not preach this as part of
our apologetic.
4) All know the true God innately by virtue of their consciousness having been created as a finite image of the divine
self-awareness; to know self is to know that God is there in that same moment of awareness. This awareness of God's reality is
then suppressed in the fallen by the sin of nature, by the sin of choice, and by sins of habit. Sinners approve of the Fall, and are
thrilled to bits to be sinners. That is, until they encounter the concept of God as Righteous Judge. Then suddenly sin becomes a
"problem" of the philosophy of religion, like God himself, to be analyzed and evaluated like any other hypothesis.
5) All fell wholly in Adam, and so no part of human nature can rise above sin's thralldom by itself. Because created, we
are not autonomous, and because we are sinners we are not morally free, but are slaves to our sin. Sinners therefore have their
slavery in common. Those of us who are "being sanctified" (Heb 10:14) remember what it is experientially to be a rebel. We can
therefore sympathize with sinners without approving of their sin any more than we approve of our own.
6) All share the need for divine revelation, the sinner to get started, and the saint to continue on the path of life.
7) All have an awareness of, and a capacity for, the Good. The unbeliever's consciousness of God as the ethical
standard of righteousness (the "conscience") may be compared to an ungraduated thermometer. It can tell the difference between
hot and cold, but not the exact temperature of either. The believer's conscience however, has been marked with graduations by
God's revelation of New Covenant law, so that he can tell not only the difference between good and evil in general, but also what
specific acts are good or evil. The image of God within us includes also the awareness of God as the origin of ethical meaning,
and so of moral standards particularly.
8) Because God is fully sovereign, no human heart is inaccessible to him. At the same time, the rebel is in existential
confrontation with the reality of God merely because he exists in God's creation. The Jewish existentialist Franz Kafka once said
of Christ, "He is an abyss of light. We must close our eyes lest we fall into it."
So the prodigal son is afloat in his little boat upon the Great Sea of Being at midnight. In the distance he can still see the lighthouse,
the visible beacon which his father built near his house by the shore, from which the escape to the far country was planned. In
order to be certain that he is going away from the shore and not towards it, he must keep the lighthouse in view even as he pulls
away from it with his oars. For it is the only flicker of light in the primeval darkness, a darkness which threatens every moment to
engulf him.
Paul assumes then, that all of us have the imago Dei, the Image of God, in common, and with it elements of self-consciousness,
rationality, and an ethically sensitive conscience. But he cannot assume that we have world views in common, for our
presuppositions differ from those of the unbeliever, and so facts and logic sustain different relations to each other in the
outworking of the two world views. As a result, the more consistent the unbeliever is to his fallen assumptions, the further will he
remove from the reality of God's world into the nightmare of his own meaninglessness.
When Paul quotes Epimenides and Aratus, it cannot be that he agrees with their intended meaning in context, for neither the
polytheism of the one nor the pantheism of the other are possible on Paul's basis. The quotations merely document the fact that
the Greeks were well aware of the problems which both Stoics and Epicureans sought to answer, and that the various non-christian
answers are actually in conflict with each other. Paul then gives a meaning to the two quotations which brings them together
intelligibly. It is clear then, that these quotations mean different things according to which world view they are placed in. Far
from trying to "build a bridge" from heathen "common ground" to the Gospel, Paul redefines the question so that only the Christian
world view allows the possibility of Truth. Did not Jesus do the same thing in his Parables?
A Paradigm of "Pre-Evangelism"?
In 1899, Dr. Robert Flint, one of the great apologists of Scotland during the previous century, gave an address on "Some
Requirements Of A Present-Day Christian Apologetics." The very first thing he says is that the vindication of Christianity "seeks
not merely to defend some portion of Christianity, but to justify it as a whole." His justly famous studies of atheism had made
clear to Flint that Christianity cannot be defended piece-meal, but must be set forth and defended as a totally comprehensive
world view. Sadly, the evangelical world did not listen to Flint, any more than they listened to his more popular (slightly later)
contemporary in London, Frank Ballard. Cornelius Van Til was even more consistent than the other two, and modern
Evangelicals have carefully ignored him as well. Francis Schaeffer himself excluded all reference to his extensive debt to Van Til
in his apologetic writings.
It is the contention of this essay that the task of constructing a fully comprehensive strategy is precisely illustrated by what Paul
was doing at Athens. When placed in the larger context of Paul's views of God, Man, Sin, and Salvation as found in his epistles,
the Areopagus address exhibits how the Christian story confronts and negates the non-christian mythical visions of experience in
such a way that Christ is seen to be the only possible answer to the human dilemma in the areas of being, knowing, acting, and
purpose. It was never enough for Paul to seek merely to show the unbeliever that Christianity is "more logical" or "more
probable" than the non-christian account of things. To claim that Christianity is "more logical" than, say, Hinduism, is to claim that
it is not 100 % rational, and that there are probably some valid arguments in favor of Hinduism. To claim that Christianity is
merely “more probable” than, say, Buddhism, is to also say that Buddhism is also "probably" correct to the degree that Christianity
is not, and that at least some of the "facts" tell against the Gospel, in telling in favor of Nirvana as a solution to human suffering.
Can anybody who has read Paul's epistles really imagine Paul thinking such things? Paul sought to challenge the non-christian
world view in toto, rather than piece-meal, for neither logic nor facts have any bearing on the outcome as long as the question of
presuppositions is ignored. Unless the Christian starting-point is repentantly accepted as the precondition of intelligibility, the facts
cannot be related to each other, and logic cannot connect with the facts. For only if we have a sufficiently comprehensive
reference-point to make the questions intelligible in the first place, can we know whether any particular answer is relevant. This
is surely implied in Jesus' claim to be himself "the way, the truth, and the life." Facts are fine, but they must be interpreted. Logic
is fine, but it is worse than useless if our presuppositions are wrong. The facts mean nothing alone, and until they are interpreted,
as Kant admitted, they are "mute." Paul's reference-point for their interpretation is the infinite-personal Triune God of the Bible,
existing eternally in himself as an ultimate Unity, and as an ultimate Diversity, and therefore as a sufficient reference-point for
interpreting the one-and-many of his creation.
The non-Christian's presuppositions must be challenged from the start. Trying to lead up to them after developing "common
ground" leaves it too late. The Gospel is only relevant if it is the only possibility, for only then is repentance the true correlative of
faith. If Christianity is allowed to remain merely the "best" answer among many, then the sinner is allowed to remain with Eve, to
play the final arbiter of whether God or Satan is right about the future, and the sinner's apostate autonomism remains
unchallenged. His fallen presuppositions about reality remain inviolate.
The ultimate aim of pre-evangelism must be to conclude with a choice between Christ, or the Void. People must be convinced of
this, in order that they may be convicted of it. We must therefore pray continually that the Holy Spirit will take our valid
arguments and impress them on the soul of the seeker to His own glory.
To Convict And Convince
We come now to a complaint which continues to be voiced in the background of any apologetic endeavor, and which can only be
silenced by appeal to Scripture itself. It is continually objected against apologetic efforts, that "you can't argue people into the
Kingdom," and so we must "just preach Christ and him crucified" without arguing with unbelief. We have already noted that
some commentators have forwarded the claim that Paul's lack of success at Athens led him to abandon the attempt to dress the
Gospel up in human philosophical terms, and that he reverted to "Christ and him crucified" at Corinth and thereafter. But once it
is realized that Paul made no concessions to Greek philosophy, and no compromise with the Greek religious world view, and that
instead of trying to find common ground, was much more interested in offering a really different alternative to the seekers among
his hearers, this "problem" falls away as simply irrelevant.
At Athens Paul was actually demonstrating by contrasting the two world views so clearly, that he would be fully justified in his
negative estimate of Greek philosophy and rhetoric by the time he reaches the situation addressed in 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16. The
Paul of that epistle is intellectually identical to the Paul who before the Areopagus, had challenged that "wisdom" which "knew not
God."
Much of the uncertainty about the relationship between apologetics and evangelism is caused by anti-intellectualism. Believers
who have little grasp of what the Bible actually teaches about the human intellect, often think that their faith operates somehow
apart from their minds. They often speak of "mere human logic" and that spiritual things are finally of "the heart" rather than of
"the head." Such people behave as if truth were a luxury unconnected with personal holiness, that God is more concerned with
how we feel than with the intellect, that in fact the intellect is not really involved in regeneration, being a purely "natural" thing for
which the believer has no particular responsibility. Yet if any of these crass absurdities were true, Christianity would be just
another arbitrary superstition. A brief glance down the concordance list of the occurrences of "heart" in the Bible soon confirms
that the Greeks never associated the Head with the intellect, but that "heart" and Mind" are virtual synonyms in the biblical
parlance. Not realizing this, sincere unbelievers turn away from the Gospel without ever coming to see what it really is.
One common manifestation of this anti-intellectualism is the pious insistence that because "you can't argue a person into the
Kingdom," there is no point trying to convince a person that Christianity is true, since what they "really" need is to be convicted by
the Holy Spirit. This "conviction" is supposed to be of "the heart," while to "convince" someone would be merely of "the head."
The difficulty with this pseudo-spiritual nonsense, is that in the original text, the words translated "convince" and "convict" are the
very same Greek word! Even in English, a moment's thought reminds us that a defendant is convicted in court only when the
judge and jury are convinced by the facts and arguments of the prosecutor that the person is guilty. In a law-court, the conviction
is merely the judge's proclamation that the jury is convinced of the defendant's guilt. In fact, the Greek word 'elencho and its
cognates means to convince a person he is wrong by pointing out his error, and is best rendered "rebuke" or "reprove" in almost all
instances. There is therefore no biblical ground for the popularly imagined disjunction between being "convicted" of sin, and
being "convinced" intellectually of the truth. We shall now attend to some of the evidence in Scripture for the close relationship in
the apostolic practice between gospel proclamation and apologetic argument.
Paul's Methods or Ours
A glance at the occasions and descriptions of preaching the Gospel in the book of Acts soon shows how far removed from the
apostolic practice are our modern methods. The Apostles both courted and encouraged questions and dialogue with their
audiences, and rare was the time when they got no verbal response at all. The following samples from the middle of Acts are
representative, and the list could easily be doubled from the rest of Luke-Acts by including the practice of Jesus himself.
Acts 14:15-17; Paul and Barnabas contrasted the common facts of God's mercy and providence with the pagan practices of
the Lytsrans, to convince them not to worship them as gods. And the argument worked.
Acts 15:5-21; In response to the false teaching of the judaizers, the Apostles Paul and James used carefully-reasoned
theological arguments and convinced the apos tolic council to correct the errors by letter.
Acts 17:2; Paul for "three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures."
Acts 17:17; he disputed with the Jews.
Acts 17:22-31; is the Areopagus address, an extended argument.
Acts 18:4; Paul reasoned and so persuaded.
Acts 18:11; "teaching the word of God." Does any one really think that this teaching was merely the bare recitation of facts without the accompanying reasoning and arguments he always includes in his letters?
Acts 18:13; "persuading men."
Acts 18:19; "reasoned with the Jews."
Acts 18:28; "he mightily (thoroughly) convinced the Jews."
Acts 19:8; "disputing and persuading boldly."
Acts 19:9; "disputing daily" in Tyrannus' philosophy school.
Acts 19:26; "persuaded. . .many people."
Acts 19:33; "defended" himself by stating his case in public.
Acts 22:1; Paul "makes his defense" or apologetic in court.
This list can be vastly expanded by inclusion of such terms as persuade, give assurance, prove, etc., as well as by examples of
reasoned argument and apologetic discourse from Jesus and Paul's Epistles. We have included in an Appendix the comments of
Dr. Frank Ballard, an evangelical Anglican in London during an earlier generation, taken from his book The Miracles Of
Unbelief (1900), to show that this is by no means a new discovery. Ballard's warning went unheeded then, and here we are a
century later, and it is still as unpopular as ever.
To convict then, we must also seek to convince. Anything less ignores the New Testament model, and is simply intellectually
irresponsible. It creates an unbiblical disjunction between apologetics and evangelism in our churches. In the meantime, here as
elsewhere, what God hath joined together, let no anti-intellectual (even if he is a theologian!) put asunder. We should leave the
"whole counsel of God" whole!
Conclusions
When the tract called "Common Ground" said that the witnessing Christian should try to help his unbelieving friends to "consider
Christianity from the vantage point of their world view," we must press for an answer to the question, "But why?" Are they not
already doing this? Is this not their fundamental error? From the vantage point of the biblical world view, is not the fact that the
unbeliever looks at things from his own point of view the very thing he must give up in order to accept God's interpretation of
reality? Does not the very essence of repentance from sin involve a change of view-point, of reference-point, of presuppositions,
a relocation of ultimacy in God instead of in the world?
We have demonstrated in this essay that Paul had no need to seek or establish "common ground" in Athens by trying to find things
in the Greek world view that he could agree with and borrow to build an epistemological bridge from the agreed-upon things to the
unique truths of the Gospel. On the contrary, from his epistles we know that he believed in an ontological common ground
identified in Scripture as our being all made in God's image. The "common grace" of General Revelation guarantees that both the
sinner and the saint confront the true God in every moment of consciousness. The unregenerate sinner continually suppresses this
awareness in order to maintain the illusion of his own autonomy.
We have demonstrated in this essay that Paul had no need to seek or establish "common ground" in Athens by trying to find things
in the Greek world view that he could agree with and borrow to build an epistemological bridge from the agreed-upon things to the
unique truths of the Gospel. On the contrary, from his epistles we know that he believed in an ontological common ground
identified in Scripture as our being all made in God's image. The "common grace" of General Revelation guarantees that both the
sinner and the saint confront the true God in every moment of consciousness. The unregenerate sinner continually suppresses this
awareness in order to maintain the illusion of his own autonomy.
Further, in creating humanity in his own image, God guarantees an epistemological common ground in our capacity for knowledge
based on our encounter with God's orderly creation, coupled with our innate capacity for language and logic. Unfortunately, this
situation is not in practice as optimistic as it sounds at first. In practice the sinner only thinks logically when he thinks his reasoning
supports his personal autonomy from the all-encompassing sovereignty of God. And logic is no help anyway, if one is controlled
by false presuppositions. The more logically consistent the sinner is with his fallen presuppositions, the further he removes himself
from the truth as God sees it, and the less capable he becomes of recognizing and admitting God's reality. This is the progressive
state of affairs outlined so clearly by Paul in Romans 1. The sinner will abandon both facts and logic without hesitation if his
autonomy is threatened by its required conclusions. Sinners have an axe to grind, as Cornelius Van Til used to say.
Again, God has implanted an ethical awareness in each of us, which, like an ungraduated thermometer, can tell that cold tap water
is cooler than hot coffee, without telling us exactly how hot they are. The conscience can tell the general direction of good and
evil without being clear on what particular actions are acceptable to God. And unregenerate sinners will suppress this data also
when it suits them.
Teleological common ground is also found between believer and unbeliever; we all want to be comfortable and fulfilled and have
a secure future. Everyone wants "to go to Heaven." We may even agree that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him
forever," but no sooner do we begin to define the terms in the statement, than the underlying and essential divergencies become
apparent. We cannot agree about what God is like, what counts as glorifying to him, or how to go about it. We cannot even
agree which mountain our diverse paths are supposed to meet at the top of, for it is really the nature of Ultimacy itself which is
the thing in question! The blind men are not even looking at the same elephant. Some of them seem to be examining a platypus.
Confrontation is therefore inevitable between the Christian and the non-christian visions of reality. The really pressing question is
the one avoided by the Search article. Should we have the confrontation at the outset, putting all the cards on the table from the
start, and to proceed to compare world views and presuppositions as the essence of the differences between believer and
unbeliever, or shall we create an artificial common ground, and then wait until the papered-over gulf rips open from the tensions
generated from incompatible axioms, and yawning unbridgeable before us, precipitates the by now heavily compromised dialogue
into the Void?
Acts 17 shows that the Apostle Paul adopted the first of these alternatives. He demonstrated by example that the Divine
Theoria and the Demonic Theoria represent two distinct universes of discourse, like two pyramids each standing under its
own apex. In this way, the Athenians knew exactly where they stood. The choice between the Christian and the non-christian
world views was not between two more or less factual and probable positions, but between Christ and the Void. In the final
analysis, its Jesus or nothing. If the unbeliever will not accept reality as God sees it, he cannot have it at all. In the meantime,
while judgement awaits, the unbeliever has at his disposal a great deal more of reality than he deserves or can logically retain, on
the basis of his own fallen presuppositions. Finally, "even that which he hath shall be taken from him" (Mat 13:12, Mk 4:25,
Lk 19:26, etc.), when at last he will face that Resurrected Man whom God has appointed on that coming Day (Acts 17:31).
In other words, Common Grace stops at the gates of Hell; "Abandon hope, all Ye who enter here." In the meantime a gap in the
history of judgement remains open for the healing of the sinner.
All that the Father hath given to me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
This remains the promise of the Lamb upon the Throne (John 6:37-44).
A Brief Bibliography
Ballard, Dr. Frank. The Miracles Of Unbelief T & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1900. Mine is the Eighth (popular) Edition of 1913.
Bruce, F. F. The Book of Acts, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1968.
Bruce, F. F. The Acts Of The Apostles; the Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Press, London, 1951.
Common Ground. Search Ministries, Inc., August 1988.
Flint, Robert. Sermons and Addresses. William Blackwood, London, 1899.
Jackson, F.J. Foakes, and Lake, Kirsopp. The Beginnings Of Christianity. Five Volumes; Macmillan, London, 1920-1933.
Kafka, Franz. Letters to his Father.
Luke, Saint. The Acts of The Apostles; in any New Testament.
Meyer, H. A. W. Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Acts of the Apostles. Funk and Wagnalls, New York, 1889.
Ramsey, Sir William. St. Paul the Traveller, and Roman Citizen. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1898, pp. 249-252.
Stonehouse, Ned. Paul Before the Areopagus. Tyndale Press, London, 1957.
Tillyard, E. M. W. The Elizabethan World Picture. Vintage Books, New York, 1944, reprinted often.
Van Til, Cornelius. Paul At Athens. Privately printed, no date.
Van Til, Cornelius. A Survey Of Christian Epistemology. Den Dulk, 1969.
Wright, R. K. McGregor. No Place For Sovereignty. IVP, 1996.