I’ll be doing my best to respond to an article written sent to me by a friend(Thanks, John). The link is below:
“First, a summary of these positions might be in order. I am a classical apologist.”
You seem to be just a plain classical apologist that dabbles in evidentialism.
“This means that I will use reason, arguments and evidence to come to the conclusion that God exists.”
The issue has always been that facts may be consistent with a theory given certain assumptions. I find a “fact” meaningless apart from a philosophy of facts. My theory of facts must itself be subjected and understood in the light of Christ lordship. It would be very inconsistent to have a philosophy of facts incompatible with Christianity. As such is shown in liberal NT Scholars. It’s not false piety, but overreaching consistency. This is where the presuppositionalist point out that we use evidence with a worldview that comports with the possibility of facts. It is morally and biblically wrong to use facts outside of a Christian worldview. It will only be used in the idol making factory of the heart of Man. The only way is to acknowledge each opponent has presuppositions and conceptual schemes that dictate how individuals conclude about facts. He also provided no real definition that would conclude he isn’t a presuppositionalist. The presuppositionalist would say the same thing as this definition. We are the true evidentialist. We believe everything is evidence for God and ground reason in him!
“These arguments will often be probabilistic and inductive . ”
I do have issues with induction. But the issue then becomes the issue that induction itself is justified by the lordship of Christ. Your arguments conclusions contradict the preconditions for such an argument. The argument concludes his lordship is highly possible. While the fact of the matter is that his lordship makes the argument possible.
“On the other hand, presuppositionalists will assume that the Christian worldview is true and from there challenge anybody who holds different assumptions to account for certain aspects of the universe. ”
The opposition wishes to explain the world against non-Christian presuppositions. I wish to have a distinctly Christian approach. Which has to take into account they have a different worldview. We don’t simply abandon our deepest commitments at the door and prepare to reason. The issue is you try to do such and it is wrong to do such. He seems to say “assume” or “presuppose” as if it is wrong to do so but understanding it as our ultimate authority that makes experience intelligible. Why shouldn’t we presuppose it? It should be noted we just don’t merely say ” X is true because X is true”. Lastly, he says “certain aspects of the universe” when we claim it makes sense out of all creation.
“They will typically say that an atheist cannot give a full account of true declaratives. ”
They can’t. Even classical apologist like the golden calf William Lane Craig sees that. You probably present the moral argument expecting for them to give an understanding how there could be objective moral duties in an atheistic worldview. It’s ironic the presuppositionalist ask the same questions and show how Jesus Christ lordship accounts for such. Showing how their worldview, in fact, does account for such things. But you go onto criticize the presuppositionalist for what you’ve done. I wish you to show us the Contrary. Show us how an Atheistic worldview accounts for ethics and logic. If you can’t, then why act as if they could?
“the classical apologist Dr. Frank Turek said that the evidence might take you 95% of the way while faith will take you the other 5%.”
I have an Augustinian view of faith and reason. Which seems to fit better for Christian epistemology.
“Similarly, William Lane Craig said in his debate with Lewis Wolpert that his faith is not ultimately based on arguments. Faith can be reinforced by arguments. ”
He’s completely right, men do not believe in God because nobody believes because of human effort ( John 6:29). But you said it is similar to what Dr. Turek said. I find them at odds with one another. The one has reason to get him so far till he hits the barrier and then his faith needs to come in. To where Craig says he would believe regardless of the arguments.
You at this point give an analogy that shows what you’re trying to do. As a lawyer defending himself in a case which he was wrongly accused of murder. The issue is that the more accurate analogy is that of a lawyer defending his Jewish defendant against a Nazi prosecution, judge, and jury. While the Jewish man’s innocent is as evident as possible.
” “I am starting with the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Where are you starting?” While it may seem a little crass, this is how presuppositionalists often sound. The objections that they raise to classical apologetics will often come down to the fallacy of piety. ”
False piety or a question about one’s ultimate commitment? What is your ultimate authority? All finite human reason has to stop somewhere.
“Many seem to think that because their argument is dressed in pious language that they win by default. While the classical apologist is standing on neutral ground with the atheist, the presuppositionalist standing firmly on the word of God.”
Hopefully, you’ll show us how you are really standing firmly on a Christian worldview. It too is often the case in which you have those in your camp denying inerrancy and instead of exegesis is supplemented with philosophical treaties.
“While the classical apologist leaves her presuppositions at the door, the presuppositionalists clings to his biblical convictions and forcefully thrusts against the atheist’s presuppositions. The problem is that all of the piety in the world will not justify an argument. An argument is assessed by its merit rather than by theological language and goals.”
While expecting an explanation of how the author avoids abandoning his Christian commitments he seems to accept that he does But sees no issue with such. He ignores the plethora of presuppositionalist literature that talks about the impossibility of such and the fact the apostles never abandoned his Christian commitments in doing apologetics. His method goes against all that we find in the scriptures and accepts unbelievers as neutral. The author of this article simply doesn’t realize he begs the question against the antithesis. Romans 1(also Romans 8 and 1 Cor. 2) teaches that we have no neutrality and to abandon the clear teaching of the scriptures is to abandon the word of God. I don’t know how you avoid such and you just explain it away with it being emotional language to get a rise out of people.
He later goes on and asks “If it is wrong to argue for general theism?”. My answer is a resounding “Yes”. I have in coming to read my Bible come to the conclusion that everyone who died believing in bare theism has died and gone to Hell. A place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Is it also wrong to argue from certain truths and pretend their truth-maker doesn’t exist? Yes! I think cosmological arguments can be used along presuppositional lines and are more effective that way.
Under his next heading, “Presuppositionalism cannot get past general theism”, he contrasts presuppositionalism with probabilism ( assuming he means induction). This is odd, because the argument presuppositionalist use (TAG) is neither deductive or inductive. It seems he conflates the transcendental argument with transcendental critiques. The two are not equivalent. He mentions the vast number of unbelievers systems and how we couldn’t critique them all “This is because there is a plethora of worldviews that could account for things such as morality and the beginning of the universe, including Islam. “. He believes that the presuppositionalist must establish the impossibility of the contrary by inductively refuting each possible worldview. But you cannot establish an absolute truth value on induction. Such is a futile attempt that only Ronald Nash defended. He finds himself attacking a small group of presuppositionalist. The group that descended from Bahnsen.
“There could conceivably be a non-Christian, trinitarian religion. That very possibility by itself will deflect presuppositionalism. We have established that the Christian worldview is not a necessary ontological or epistemological preconditions to any of the named factors.”
He does so but a strawman and by avoiding dealing with any presuppositionalist literature that defends such. In the end, this shows a fundamental disregard for revelational epistemology. He appealed to Roman Catholics which appeal to holy tradition to understand the scriptures. Which we have contradictions between Popes! Furthermore, they undermine the intelligibility of any revelation. If one cannot understand it, why think they can? It leads to skepticism. We should also remember as Protestants that the scriptures contradict the teachings of Rome.
“If an explanation has superfluous and overcomplicated details, a simpler explanation will be preferred.”
Why is that to be preferred? You see that’s an assumption we have taken for granted. That is the point of why a philosophy of fact must be discussed and not taken for granted. I agree with you but this is exactly my complaint. It works with those you have agreements with.
“So, in accounting for morality or other factors of the universe presuppositionally, one will have to use generic theism. That is the strongest presuppositional argument available.”
The moral argument is the strongest presuppositionalist argument? Then, why do classical apologist use it?
“The final command that Christ gave his disciples was to preach the gospel to all nations (Matthew 28:19). Yet Scripture also tells us that to the natural man, the things of God are foolishness (1st Corinthians 2:14). In context, the natural man is the one who is unsaved. So we are to preach the gospel to those who will think that it is foolishness. This seems to be an internal contradiction.”
You could argue it seems that is a task that conflicts with itself. But that is hardly a contradiction. It isn’t a denial and affirmation of a thing in the same way and the same time.
” If everybody to whom the gospel is preached thinks that it is foolishness, and they will not reply apart from God’s grace, then why should we bother making an argument or appealing to evidence?”
This is not what presuppositionalist from my experience argue. Clearly, regeneration changes a man’s heart and gives him the proper worldview to believe the evidence in the light of Christian presuppositions.
” Presuppositionalists will raise this challenge against classical apologetics, not knowing that it is as significant of a challenge for them, and the answer for both of us will inevitably be the same.”
The issue is presenting evidence as if they didn’t know the Christian God.
“God uses means to accomplish his ends.”
You don’t have to tell a Calvinist that.
“In this case, the mechanism that he uses is our preaching. As the classical apologist mounts her argument, she is praying that God will be merciful to the unbelievers who hear her, softening their heart and drawing them to repentance.”
Most classical apologists are freewill theist that avoid any talk of the sovereignty of God. So, the very small minority of classical apologist do such.
“The answer to this challenge will be the same whether you are a presuppositionalist or a classical apologist. When we reason with the unbeliever, we are not hoping that we will make such a sound point that they finally have an epiphany. We are praying that God will open their mind to hear the truth.”
That’s correct and the only way to do such is not abandoning your worldview to reason with unbelievers ,but rather showing them that they use the tools God gives them and deny him.
“When Paul says that he is fool for Christ’s sake, I do not think that he is speaking literally. When he says that he uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, it is incomprehensible that he would be saying that the gospel is literally foolish. If it were foolish, then it ought not be believed. He is talking about the perspective that unregenerate have of the gospel. Even if we use reasonable arguments, they will always think that it is foolish because of the theological implications. The theological implications of a reasonable argument will motivate them to dismiss the argument, saying that it is foolish. In exactly the same way, the unregenerate man will not be able to examine his presuppositions because of the theological implications. Examining his presuppositions will mean doing the unthinkable – submitting to Christ. Either way, the problem of noetic effect is identical for the classicalist and the presuppositionalist. The solution – God’s grace – is exactly the same for both of us as well.”
This shows what the presuppositionalist is trying to do. Show his utter dependence upon the God of this world. We acknowledge his sinful state and engage. It is that our method acknowledges that and yours mindlessly ignores such.
“Presuppositionalism Assumes That Coherence Equals Truth”
This is an uncommon charge that doesn’t make much sense.
“Recall again what presuppositionalism is. It says that the Christian worldview is a necessary precondition to understanding reality. If the Christian worldview can account for the existence of the universe, rationality, morality, and every other factor, that will establish only that Christianity is internally coherent.”
The author here proves my point that He doesn’t understand TAG. He conflates the argument with the critique of opposing worldviews. Bahnsen also had said worldviews need to be non-arbitrary.
“But is internal coherence really enough?”
Nobody thinks it is, other than coherentist and Clarkians.
” It could be that a worldview is both [1] internally consistent and [2] false. This means that even if the presuppositional argument works, it may still be the case that Christianity is false.”
If the argument “works” as meaning “is true”, it must conclude Christianity is the necessary precondition of intelligibility. That would entail that it is true.
He goes through a long explanation of how Christianity may be a sufficient condition for intelligibility, but not a necessary condition. He thinks the presuppositionalist would require an infinite time to critique all possible worldviews. Which is impossible. But the transcendental argument isn’t established inductively. He’s requesting a task nobody argues can be done.
“Truth and coherence do not necessarily need to correspond.”
Truth must always be coherent, but coherence doesn’t entail Truth. I’m a Van Tilian and not a Clarkian. The author only quotes Bahnsen as if all presuppositionalist agree. But this objection that presuppositionalist must become coherentist has been raised before and this shows how the author is rather young and stepped out into areas he isn’t quite read up on.
*“Presuppositionalism adopts a coherence rather than correspondence account of truth which is assumed in Scripture and by our God-given, common sense.”
Scripture and common sense do not accept a “correspondence account of truth” as opposed to a coherence or pragmatic theory. Scripture and common sense don’t endorse theories; rather they provide part of the basis for theories. The correspondence theory is one attempt to formulate the way we know things, but it is philosophically controversial. In my Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (hence DKG) I argue that correspondence, coherence, and pragmatics, in their best form, are not incompatible with one another, and, indeed, reduce to one another. We cannot tell what our ideas “correspond” to unless we have a system of ideas that deals with various things including the concept of correspondence itself. But certainly the correspondence theory is right in saying that our ideas must align with the facts of the world.*
John Frame : http://frame-poythress.org/ten-problems-with-presuppositionalism/
“8. I don’t see that presuppositionalism is committed to a coherence theory of truth to the exclusion of a correspondence theory of truth. Why treat coherence and correspondence theories of truth as mutually exclusive? Shouldn’t theories of truth be suited to the nature of the truths in question? If, say, it’s a belief about a state of affairs, then that’s more suited to a correspondence theory. If, however, it’s about the interrelationship between two or more beliefs, then that’s more suited to a coherence theory. What’s the relation in question? A relation between a belief about the world and the world? Or a logical relation between one belief and another? If two beliefs, or propositions, are mutually inconsistent, then they can’t both be true.Moreover, the correspondence theory of truth is complicated. It’s odd that a philosophy prof. like Partain relies on dictionary definitions and Nicole’s “The Biblical concept of Truth.” Compare that to philosophical models of the correspondence theory”
Steve Hays:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/08/ten-problems-with-presuppositionalism.html?m=1
“The major concern that I have about presuppositionalism is that it is wrapped in false piety.”
I just find it isn’t false and think you add ill intentions to good men.
” Logic and reason are replaced by flowery jargon. ”
James Anderson would laugh at such a silly remark.
“That establishes a bad precedent. An argument cannot be justified or dismissed based on whether the argument is pious or decorated in pious language. Just because someone says, “I am starting with the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior,” does not mean that his methodology. Which is to be preferred. ”
It should prove it is the more biblically consistent. Which is what Christians ought to do in every area of life.
The Council 