Sunday, January 13, 2013

Presuppositionalism Under the Microscope

Introduction
While most Christians will agree that there is a need to defend the faith, many will not realize that there is a debate regarding methodologies. This paper will address the various apologetics methods, and then analyze before critiquing the relatively new method of presuppositionalism. While this method has a lot to offer from a practical apologetics standpoint, it cannot be held rationally as a worldview. This paper will give seven reasons why this is the case.
Brief Overview of Apologetic Methodologies
            Before addressing presuppositionalism, an introduction to other apologetic methodologies is in order. The main form of apologetics used historically is called Classical Apologetics. Under this method, the apologist gives arguments for the existence of God, and then proceeds to develop Christian evidences for the Christian worldview. Arguments like the moral argument, and other reason-based argumentation tend to dominate this method.
            If classical apologetics is a two-step method, evidentialism is a one-step method. The evidentialist will usually forego rationalistic argumentation and will simply bring out evidences for the Christian worldview. The method of Gary Habermas is an example of evidentialism.
            Those methods as well as presuppositionalism are the main methods of apologetics. There are others as well, such as fideism, which tells people to just believe without argument. Polemical apologetics seeks to attack other worldviews. There are cumulative case methods of apologetics, where two worldviews face off for which one better answers life’s deepest questions. There is also eclectic apologetics, which seeks to borrow methods from other schools of apologetics depending on the need.
This brings the discussion to presuppositionalism, which seeks to examine the underlying assumptions of any worldview. In short, presuppositionalism states that one’s foundational views are the only truly relevant factor in discussing worldviews. The founder of modern presuppositionalism is Cornelius van Til.
Van Til
            Cornelius Van Til was one of the founding members of Westminster Theological Seminary, and a staunch Calvinist. Van Til had a holistic view of knowledge, whereby people cannot disagree regarding their most fundamental assumptions about reality while agreeing upon everything else. He saw as flawed the classical approach to apologetics where the apologist builds his case based upon pieces of evidence. This is like building a house brick by brick. Van Til believed, based on his holistic view of knowledge, that all truths depend upon Scripture, as does our knowledge of it. As a result, his apologetic methodology sought to import the entire Christian worldview wholesale before defending it. This is more like importing an entire pre-built house.
            Van Til’s thinking can be illustrated in terms of scientific models. Under the geocentric solar system, the idea that everything revolves around the Earth is the core foundational assumption. The Ptolemaic model drove all research into the motion of heavenly bodies. All discoveries presupposed the doctrine of geocentrism.
After Copernicus developed the heliocentric model, astronomers began conducting research based on the assumption that everything revolves around the Sun. The same observations were made between the geocentric school and the heliocentric school. However, it became difficult for the two views to dialogue. Both had the same sense data, and yet had wildly different conclusions. The geocentrist could only fully understand the teachings of the heliocentrists by climbing into their assumptions and seeing the solar system from that perspective.
According to Van Til, those who are not regenerate are like the geocentrists. Because their fundamental assumptions are wrong, their research as a whole is ultimately unreliable. Van Til equates unbelief with geocentrism. Those who do not have a  Bible-centered worldview have the wrong foundational assumptions, and therefore produce knowledge which as a whole is suspect. Van Ti writes:
Is there something in which believers in Christianity and disbelievers agree? Is there an area known by both, from which, as a starting point, we may go on to that which is known to believers but unknown to unbelievers? And is there a common method of knowing this “known area” that need only be applied to what the unbeliever does not know in order to convince him of its existence and its truth? It will not do to assume at the outset that these questions must be answered in the affirmative. For the knower himself needs interpretation as well as the things he knows. The human mind, it is now commonly recognized, as the knowing subject, makes its contribution to the knowledge it obtains. It would be quite impossible then, to find a common area of knowledge between believers and unbelievers unless there is an agreement between them as to the nature of man himself. But there is no such agreement.[1]
According to Van Til, there is no point of contact between believers and unbelievers, and therefore no common ground. Our views of reality are too different.
Van Til’s Successors
Greg Bahnsen’s beliefs are more nuanced. He affirms that there is common ground between believers and unbelievers.[2]The difference is that in Bahnsen’s view, all people subconsciously believe in God. Bahnen writes “[I]t is utterly impossible that ther should be any neutral ground, any territory or facet of reality where man is not confronted with the claims of God, any area of knowledge where the theological issue is inconsequential.”[3] In chapter 10, titled “Common Ground Which Is Not Neutral” Bahnsen writes “The foregoing considerations not only establish tha there is no neutral ground between the believers and unbelievers, but that there is also ever present common ground between the believer and the unbeliever.”[4]All of their beliefs presuppose him, and therefore, it is the job of the apologist merely to show that this is the case.[5]John Frame sides with Bahnsen on this issue. Frame argues that unbelievers can know many things, and that this knowledge is considered common knowledge. The reason, according to Frame, that believers and unbelievers have common knowledge is that unbelievers know God and base their belief systems upon that knowledge. Unbelievers, however, suppress their knowledge of God, who nevertheless, is still the foundation of their belief systems.[6]
Frame also talks about the noetic effects of sin and of conversion. In short, the noetic effects of sin prevent unbelievers from reaching God through a search that begins with human reason. Instead, unbelievers suppress the truth and require conversion to undo this effect. While unbelievers have possessed a rational view of some parts of the world, all systems of unbelief will never be able to produce a fully coherent picture of reality.[7]According to Frame, the difference between the unbeliever and the believer is not one of degree but of direction. The result of conversion, according to Frame, is a complete paradigm shift.[8]
What all three authors have in common is the belief that sin affects the human ability to obtain knowledge. Because of original sin, humanity is totally unable to have an awareness of the human knowledge of God. As a result, regeneration is necessary for man to have a saving faith in God. Evidential apologetics seeks to start with common beliefs, and then build a case for God from those beliefs. Presuppositionalism states that all facts presuppose God as their foundation. Hence, all arguments for and against the existence of God presuppose the existence of God. Therefore, apologists need to help the unbeliever realize this inconsistency in non-Christian worldviews.
Problems
            In order to critique presuppositionalism, one must differentiate between presuppositionalism as a method and presuppositionalism as a worldview. The former is simply a practical way of defending the faith. This paper will not go into detail about this aspect, since the utility of the method is somewhat subjective. Presuppositionalism as a worldview seeks to define human knowledge in such a way as to deny the existence of neutral facts and neutral criteria. Under the worldview interpretation, presuppositional apologetics is not merely a useful tool in the apologist’s toolbox; it is the only legitimate tool.
Presuppositionalism as a method has much going for it. It delivers a refreshing change in methodology by placing the burden of proof back on the unbeliever. In addition, it takes the psychology of unbelief seriously. Many unbelievers admit that their real reason for unbelief is due to factors other than the intellectual plausibility of the existence of God. Bahnsen also stumbled upon a very powerful argument against unbelief. By employing David Hume’s arguments against unbelief, Bahnsen was able to show that metaphysical naturalism has a very difficult time attempting to explain how human beings can know anything.
The problems with presuppositionalism do not stem from its methodology, but from the worldview behind the methodology. If presuppositionalism were merely a pragmatic form of apologetics, there would be no reason to criticize it. Apologists, after all, are free to use whatever method works. The problem is that many presuppositionalists, such as Van Til, base their method on a flawed model of human understanding. This flawed model harms not only their theology, but also causes them to reject arguments and methods which might otherwise be helpful.
            The first issue with presuppositionalism is that it is a textbook case of circular reasoning. There is no need to get into detail about it here, since most of its proponents are happy to oblige that their method is a form of circular reasoning. Cornelius Van Til writes “To admit one’s own presuppositions and to point out the presuppositions of others is therefore to maintain that all reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning.”[9] In a footnote, the editor explains that against charges of circular reaoning, Van Til states that such reasoning is appropriate. John Frame concurs with Van Til. “The point is that when one is arguing for an ultimate criterion, whether Scripture, the Koran, human reason, sensation, or whatever, one must use criteria compatible with that conclusion. If that is circularity, then everybody is guilty of circularity.”[10] Frame goes on to argue that there are no neutral facts or neutral criteria.[11]
What they do not appear to realize is that circular reasoning is itself fallacious. It is indistinguishable from bare assertion. If I argue that miracles are impossible because they never happen, I might be asked to give a reason for why one should think that miracles never happen. If I then argue that miracles never happen because they are impossible, it would make the argument circular. Such an argument would be fallacious because in such a situation, I would be just as well off by pounding the table and asserting that miracles are impossible. At the very least, such an approach would be more honest. Because circular argumentation collapses into bare assertion, it follows that circular arguments are not really arguments at all, but cleverly disguised assertions.
If all argumentation were ultimately circular, it would follow that all argumentation is no different than bare assertion. Any argument one could give to claim that all argumentation is circular would itself either be circular or not. If it is not circular, then the argument for the circularity of all arguments is self-refuting. If such an argument were circular, however, then it would be nothing more than a bare assertion, and hence not a true argument. This fact that argumentation is not ultimately circular is also in no way undercut by one’s inability to explain how argumentation is not circular. That is a completely different question for a completely different paper. Even if no one could ever explain how it is that we have non-circular argumentation, such would only prove our own lack of research into the subject, but could never provide justification for the notion that all argumentation is circular for the same reason that no argument could provide justification into denying the law of non-contradiction.
Second, presuppositionalism underestimates the power of common grace. Even the Calvinist theology textbooks recognize that God gives grace not only to the elect, but also to all of humanity. Specifically, common grace is the grace of God by which he gives people innumerable blessings that are not part of salvation. As John 19:9 states “the true light enlightens every man.” Common grace allows unbelievers to distinguish truth from error. All science and technology carried out by unbelievers is the result of common grace. But wait. If common grace is this powerful, then why wouldn’t it be strong enough for us to do classical apologetics? Presuppositionalists cannot give a good answer to this question.
Third, presuppositionalism confuses ontological priority with epistemic priority. Ontological priority means that something has to exist in order for something else to exist. Epistemic priority means that you have to know one thing in order to know another thing. Consider the two statements: “If God does not exist, then our intuitions about reality are not justified” (a claim about ontological priority) with: “If you do not believe in God, your intuitions about reality are not justified” (a claim about epistemic priority). These are completely different claims. I agree that God needs to exist in order to justify our intuitions about what is and is not moral. However, it does not follow that we need to believe in God in order to act morally.
Fourth, presuppositionalism presupposes a highly controversial theory of knowledge. Remember that Cornelius Van Til said that we can have no common beliefs with unbelievers because we do not share the same foundation for those beliefs. This presupposes a theory of knowledge that I will call Narrow Foundationalism. This method seeks to build an entire system of knowledge on a very narrow foundation. However, there are numerous other epistemologies that may be viable as well. An example is Alvin Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology. In this system, Plantinga argues that our beliefs are not like bricks in a skyscraper, where a small foundation holds up a massive structure.
Rene Descartes tried to build his entire system of knowledge on a small foundation of indubitable beliefs. The project was ultimately a failure. Today, epistemologists who hold to a foundationalist system will try to base their beliefs on a more modest foundation, coming up with criteria such as incorrigibility as criteria for being the foundation. This too, may be too restrictive. In fact, most of the beliefs we hold are not based upon a foundation of other beliefs. My belief that I am seeing a light is not based on some pre-existing belief, nor is it based on any sort of an argument. The belief pretty much forms automatically. Plantinga argued that most of our beliefs are like this. They can be held prima facie unless they are undercut by a defeater. They are not like bricks in a skyscraper, but like bricks scattered throughout a parking lot. Most beliefs are basic, and a small percentage of them are built upon other beliefs. If this system of knowledge, or something like it turns out to be true, then the entire foundational belief of Van Til comes crashing to the ground.
Fifth, presuppositionalism often forgets that Christianity is, at least in principle, falsifiable. Christianity makes claims that can be tested historically. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”
The skeptic John Loftus is absolutely right about presuppositional apologetics. Christianity makes a lot of claims about what did and did not happen in history. This includes miracles, such as the resurrection of Jesus, as well as ordinary historical events, such as the mass exodus from Egypt by the Israelites, the kingdom of Solomon and the building of the temple, the exile to Babylon, the return from exile. In the New Testament it contains names of real life cities such as Capernaum, Antioch, Jerusalem, Bethsaida. It contains the life of Jesus and the life of Paul. All of these events are subject to historical investigation.
Presuppositionalism undermines historical investigation because it seeks to presuppose a lot more than the existence of God. While using a presuppositional approach regarding the existence of God is arguable viable, presupposing the whole Christian worldview is not. Christianity is saturated with historical claims which can be investigated. One can simply take these historical claims on faith, but to do so is to abandon apologetics and embrace fideism. One can simply bite the bullet and claim that the presuppositionalist must believe a priori all historical truths in the Bible in order to know anything, but this seems obviously false. The historical claims of Christianity were not always true. In the Old Testament period for example, no one knew or would have guessed that Messiah would have been God in the flesh, and who would have undergone crucifixion for our sins. However, these Old Testament saints presumably did have real knowledge even though they could not possibly have presupposed the core historical claims of the Christian faith. You cannot presuppose disputable historical events prior to investigating whether or not those events took place and expect to be taken seriously as an apologist.
Sixth, Van Til’s apologetic might not even be Christian, but may be merely theistic. John Johnson gives a devastating critique as to why Van Til’s system is wholly inadequate when addressing other faiths, such as Islam. Van Til argues from Romans 1:18-21 that non-Christians suppress the truth, and that a presuppositional technique is necessary. However, this section of the Bible deals with knowledge of God, but not theological issues about the Trinity, Jesus, salvation by grace through faith alone, etc. [12]Instead, it only says that unbelievers are without excuse for denying monotheism. Paul reinforces this in Acts 17, when he talks about the statue to an unknown God. Paul deals with the Athenians on their own ground.
A more practical example is what I call Artscroll Judaism. This is a fundamentalist sect of Orthodox Judaism, with its own think tanks which can give you an answer to anything. Anyone who is willing to take the leap into the system will find it every bit as coherent as one would find the Reformed Christian view.
            John Warwick Montgomery gives a fable about a conversation between two presuppositionalists from two different religions: the Shadok religion, and the Gibi religion.
Shadok: You will never discover the truth, for instead of subordinating yourself to revelational truth (The Shadok Bible) you sinfully insist on maintaining the autonomy of your fallen intellect.
Gibi: Quite the contrary. [He repeats the same assertion substituting the Gibi Bible for the Shadok Bible.] And I say this not on the basis of my sinful ego but because I have been elected by the Gibi God.
Shadok: Wrong again! [He repeats the exact same claim, substituting Shadok Election for Gibi Election.] Moreover, the sovereign election of which I am the unworthy recipient has been the very work of God the Shadok Holy Spirit. And all of this is clearly taught in the self-validating Scripture of our people, which, I should not have to reiterate, derives from the true God and not from sinful, alledgedly autonomous man.
Gibi: How dare you invert everything. [He laboriously repeats the preceding argument, substituting Gibi election, the Gibi Holy Spirit, and the Gibi Bible.]
Shadok: Absurd! This is the inevitable result of your colored glasses.
Gibi: It is you who have the glasses cemented to your face. Mine have been transparent through sovereign grace and Gibi election, as proclaimed by the Gibi God’s word.
Shadok: Your religion is but the inevitable byproduct of sin—a tragic effort at self-justification through idolatry. Let’s see what the Shadok God really says about his word.
Gibi: I will not listen to your alleged “facts.” Unless you start with the truth, you have no business interpreting facts at all. Let me help you by interpreting facts revelationally.
Shadok: Of course you will not listen to the proper interpretation of facts. Blinded by your sin, you catch each fact as you would a ball—and then you throw it into a bottomless pit.
Gibi: That’s what you do with what I say—a clear proof of your hopeless, pseudo-autonomous condition. May the Gibi God help you.
Shadok: May the Shadok God help you![13]
As Montgomery notes, this encounter is hopeless, since neither side can appeal to neutral facts to solve the dispute. Both sides are reduced to chest-thumping, loud assertion, and empty fideism.
Furthermore, to use a criterion like consistency to evaluate one religious system against another, as James White is so famous for doing, is to deny the heart of presuppositionalism. This is because presuppositionalism, by its very nature, denies the existence of neutral facts and that of neutral criteria with which to evaluate these facts.
Seventh, and perhaps the most damning of all, is a problem called incommensurability, which is parallel to a problem found in Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy of science. This argument is thanks to my colleague Donald Dicks, who brought this to my attention. Kuhn sought to explain the history of science revolves around paradigms. The paradigm is the foundational set of assumptions that any scientific system has. All scientific facts, according to Kuhn, are paradigm-determined. When scientific revolutions occur, the paradigm changes and all the data have to be reinterpreted. This is exemplified in the scientific switch from geocentrism to heliocentrism. The change, according to Kuhn, is like a religious conversion experience, where the world remakes itself before the eyes of the scientists. These are not forced by logic and reason, and dry neutral facts. The battle cannot be resolved by proofs. There is no neutral language to state either theory. The reasons that scientists accept new theories are not necessarily logical or rational, because each scientific model contains not just the paradigm in which scientists interpret the facts, but also the criteria by which scientists would be able to evaluate one system against another. This view has fallen greatly out of favor in the mainstream philosophy of science. The philosopher of science Imre Lakatos explains why.
In Kuhn’s view there can be no logic, but only psychology of discovery. For instance, in Kuhn’s conception, anomalies, inconsistencies, always abound in science, but in normal periods the dominant paradigm secures a pattern of growth which his eventually overthrown by a crisis. There is no particular rational cause for the appearance of a Kuhnian crisis. Crisis is a psychological concept; it is a contagious panic. Then a new paradigm emerges, incommensurable with its predecessor. There are no rational standards for their comparison. Each paradigm contains its own standards. The crisis sweeps away not only the old theories and rules but also the standards which made us respect them. The new paradigm brings totally new rationality. There are no super-paradigmatic standards. The change is a bandwagon effect. Thus in Kuhn’s view, scientific revolution is isrrational, a matter for mob psychology.[14]

Without neutral facts and without neutral criteria, there can be no evaluation of one worldview against another. If this assumption is applied to presuppositionalism itself, then there can be no argument which would set presuppositionalism as superior to evidentialism. To say that there is such an argument is to contradict the foundational assumptions of presuppositionalism. To admit that there is no such argument is to admit that the presuppositionalist cannot, even in principle, have any case for his worldview. To this I respond: amen. If we take the foundational assumptions of presuppositionalism to their logical conclusion, it becomes obvious that any argument that one can possibly give for presuppositionalism would be self-refuting. Hence, any presuppositionalist who advances any argument for his worldview has already contradicted the very foundational assumptions which he is trying to defend. To deny neutral facts is no different than denying the law of non-contradiction. The very attempt is in principle futile.


[1] Van Til. 84.
[2] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith (New York: Covenant Media Press, 1996), page 43.
[3] Bahnsen, 45.
[4] Bahnsen, 43.
[5] Ibid., 123.
[6] John M. Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God: an Introduction (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Publishing, 1994), page 83.
[7] Steven B. Cowan, ed., Five Views On Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2000), page 212.
[8] Cowen, 214.
[9] Van Til, 130.
[10] Frame 10.
[11] Frame, 12.
[12]Johnson, 266.

[13]Montgomery, 114-115.
[14]Lakatos, 178.

6 comments:

  1. You realise that the trancdenal arguement is just a play on semantics right? A typical theist argument (From Matt Slick of CARM) goes as follows:

    Logical absolutes are transcendent; they are not dependent on time or space
    Logical absolutes are conceptual; they have no physical properties.
    Concepts are the product of a mind.
    Logical absolutes can’t be the product of human minds, which are variable and limited.
    Therefore, logical absolutes are the product of God’s mind.


    but he conflates the fact that logical absolutes exist with our ability to recognize that they exist. It’s a bit like confusing the word “cat” with the animal “cat.” The word “cat” may not exist without a mind observing it, but the animal “cat” certainly can. By the same token, the application of logic may require a mind, but logical absolutes are independent of any mind. A cat is still a cat when no one is around.

    The same can be said for any abstract idea. Jupiter was still larger than Neptune before anyone understood the concept of size comparison.

    There’s no need for an external mind to bring those concepts into being.

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    1. The classical Transcendental Argument is not Matt Slick's variant of it which I think it ultimately unsound. I do think your criticism of Matt Slick's argument is confused. I am sure the argument would agree that these logical rules are independent of a mind, but only of human minds. If he held to a conceptualist view of abstract objects, he would agree that they are independent of the mind just like cat's, but they ultimately have their grounding in a necessary being. My personal Query with Slick's argument is that there are problems with his principle of the "Impossibility to the contrary", he has an egregious misunderstanding of the Theorem in First-Order Propositional logic called the Law of the Excluded Middle and it's difference from the principle of bivalence as he conflates these two. Matt would have to show that his logical rules stand up in face of Non-Classical Logical systems which deny the rule of Non-contradiction or excluded middle. He would have to defend Divine Conceptualism from it's objections like the dependency problem (the demand for an asymmetrical relationship between God and necessary abstracta). Matt does conflate Token-instances of Logic reasoning with the type of logical laws like the state-of-affairs P V ~P which is a standard fallacy of equivocation, so there is not reason given that which commits us to Logic being conceptual inherently. So, his argument would need serious revision.

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  2. Hi,

    You do not cite the source of your Van Til quotes. You say "Van Til. 84"... I'm sure it was just an oversight, but that's like saying "Bible 24:11". Could you please provide which book of Van Til's you're referring to?

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    1. This was originally a paper for the Evangelical Philosophical Society. It would have been from either Van Til's Defense of the Faith or Christian Apologetics.

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  3. Thanks, Drew. I found it. It's Christian Apologetics, the 2nd edition. The first doesn't have the notes by William Edgar.

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  4. Also a clarification on circularity: http://messianicdrew.blogspot.com/2013/07/presuppositionalism-under-microscope.html

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