By - Read Job 21
Zophar tries to argue in Chapter 20 that the wicked do not prosper. He saw before his eyes that Job was not prospering, and so reasons that Job is wicked. Job picks up on this line of reasoning in Chapter 21 to try and show Zophar that the wicked do prosper sometimes in this life. In other words, Job’s intense suffering does not prove himself a wicked man, nor does a man’s prospering prove that he is righteous.
The lack of this line of reasoning is one of the reasons why presuppositional reasoning is so appealing. Neither man (Zophar or Job) start out their argument by saying, “the Bible shows in Jeremiah 12:1-2 that the wicked prosper at times, therefore it can not be true that prosperity proves a man to be righteous.”
We have the incredible benefit of having the complete canon of Scripture. We have a standard that we can reason from. The Scripture is our presupposition. It is our source of truth. It is the ground by which we reason all things true or false. This is the difference between the Evidentialist and the Presuppositionalist.
We can’t get away from using both lines of reasoning, nor should we try. In our day to day lives we need a bit of both. But when we seek to prove something with the utmost of certainty, we have no better way than to deduce a conclusion from the propositions of Scripture. We have no other source on earth of truth.
“All (men/people) have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Scott is a man, therefore he has sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. The Bible teaches that Scott David is a sinner. This I know by presuppositional reasoning.
Leading Family Devotions 