The Word of God: The True Weapon of Abolition
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword… and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
— Hebrews 4:12
Standing before the Connecticut Supreme Court, I was reminded that the most important institution on earth is not the courthouse, nor even the legislature—it is the Church of Jesus Christ.
And yet, the Church in Connecticut remains largely silent on the greatest moral crisis of our time: the legalized slaughter of unborn children.
This silence reveals something deeper than apathy—it reveals a failure of theology. We have allowed human reasoning and pragmatism to replace the authority of God’s Word. That’s why I am calling Christians, and especially abolitionists, back to the Bible as our only weapon and foundation.
Evidentialism and Its Limits
Evidentialism begins by seeking common ground with unbelievers. It argues that through “neutral” reason and observation, we can discover truth together. In the abortion debate, this often sounds like:
“Science proves life begins at conception.”
That’s true—but it’s not enough. When we argue this way as though scientific evidence itself is the ultimate standard, we subtly make man the judge of what God has already declared. Scripture had already spoken clearly:
“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man.” — Genesis 9:6
Evidentialism makes the unbeliever’s intellect the courtroom, and God’s revelation the evidence on trial. It accepts the myth of neutrality—the idea that human minds can evaluate facts apart from God. But neutrality is a lie. The mind that rejects God already interprets the world through rebellion.
As Greg Bahnsen said, “The problem is not a lack of evidence, but a lack of submission.”
Presuppositionalism: The Foundation That Cannot Be Shaken
By contrast, Presuppositionalism begins with God and His Word as the absolute foundation of truth.
As Cornelius Van Til wrote, “The Christian apologist must not merely argue for the possibility of the Christian God, but from the impossibility of the contrary.”
This means that without the Triune God revealed in Scripture, nothing—logic, morality, or science—can be meaningfully accounted for.
The Preconditions of Intelligibility
Presuppositionalism teaches that the very possibility of rational thought, scientific uniformity, and moral judgment depends on the truth of Christianity. These are called the preconditions of intelligibility—the necessary truths that make knowledge possible at all.
Order in nature, moral absolutes, and the laws of logic do not arise from chaos or chance. They presuppose a rational, moral, and sovereign Creator who governs all things.
Only the God of the Bible provides that foundation. Without Him, all reasoning collapses into irrationality.
The Impossibility of the Contrary
This is the heart of Van Til’s apologetic. If Christianity were not true, knowledge itself would be impossible. Every competing worldview—whether atheism, secular humanism, or false religion—borrows from Christianity to make sense of reality.
When an unbeliever argues, reasons, or appeals to morality, he unwittingly borrows God’s tools to build a house of rebellion. That’s why Bahnsen called presuppositionalism a “transcendental argument for God’s existence.” It shows that to deny the Christian worldview is to destroy the very possibility of understanding anything.
How Presuppositionalism Uses Evidence—Rightly
Presuppositionalism is sometimes misunderstood as rejecting evidence altogether. It does not.
Rather, it insists that evidence must be interpreted through the lens of God’s revelation, not apart from it. The Christian and the unbeliever both see the same world—but they interpret it through opposing presuppositions.
We can and should use scientific facts, historical proofs, and philosophical reasoning—but as confirmation of God’s truth, not as foundations of it.
Presuppositionalism uses evidences ministerially (as servants of Scripture), not magisterially (as judges over Scripture).
Why This Matters for Abolitionism
Abolitionism arises directly from presuppositional Christianity.
If God’s Word is the ultimate authority, then His commands—not human pragmatism—define justice.
The command “You shall not murder” is not validated by heartbeat monitors, genetic codes, or polling data. It is valid because the sovereign Lawgiver has spoken.
That’s why abolitionists reject incrementalism. Incremental “pro-life” strategies flow from the same evidentialist mindset—they treat divine justice as negotiable, something to be proven or achieved by degrees. But presuppositional abolitionism proclaims: God’s law is the standard now. Equal protection and equal justice belong to every image-bearer from fertilization onward—not because science confirms it, but because Scripture demands it.
The Word That Discerns
When we rely on Scripture, we wield a weapon no human philosophy can match. The Bible itself is “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
When we quote it, the response reveals the soul. The same passage that hardens one man cuts another to repentance. The Word divides. It exposes. It never returns void.
As Van Til reminded us, unbelief always suppresses truth (Romans 1:18). No amount of scientific persuasion will unsuppress it—only the Spirit of God, through the Word of God, can open blind eyes.
That is why every Christian abolitionist must resolve:
I will not set aside the sword of the Spirit to wield the dull blade of secular consensus.
Conclusion: No Neutral Ground
The Church must awaken. The abortion debate will never be won by out-arguing the world on its own terms. It will only be won when the people of God again believe that His Word is living, powerful, and sufficient.
We are not evidential abolitionists—we are presuppositional abolitionists.
Our authority is not the laboratory, but the Lord.
Our foundation is not the consensus of men, but the Word of God.
As I stood before the Connecticut Supreme Court, one truth anchored me:
“The Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
And that is enough.