Presuppositional V.S. Classical

[NomosCharis]

Wow. I did not see these last three responses of yours until just now. I was just waiting for my gmail to notify me of your reply, and since it never did, I just assumed you were taking your time. Wow...

I haven't read any of this yet, and I'm going to be on a road trip next week until Memorial Day, so it might be a while before I can read all this and reply, but I promise that it will be a top priority when I get back home. I am thoroughly enjoying this debate, and I am learning a lot. I hope that you have also been provoked to think by my comments and my questions.

God bless,

Your brother in the Lord and fellow apologist,

Jonathan

[T. Scott Morgan]

I just posted them yesterday , no rush.

[theogrit]

Hi everybody!


I am a Calvinist who OPPOSES using Presuppositional Apologetics. I know, I'm like a total freak of Christendom, right? :/

Anyway,
I need to be converted to Presuppositionalism by my reformed brethren so I can be normal like everybody else.
Nah, seriously though. I am interested in you guys showing me why Presuppositionalism is the "bees-knees." ^_^

I hope this doesn't come across as an arrogant "challenge" or anything. I want to learn more about why my Reformed comrades like to use this method. I want this to be a learning experience for me.

Hi NomosCharis, T. Scott, et al.

I appreciate the time and effort you've taken in this dialogue - it's been all I could do to diligently read it all. I just wanted to drop by and lend a brief encouragement to the two sides in the debate, among other shades and sides in worthy Christian apologetics. Like Nomos, I also strongly prefer what's usually termed classical apologetics as contrasted with presuppositional and/or Reformed apologetics; though I realize the site is essentially supportive of Reformed apologetics, as it's subtitle indicates, and I wouldn't wish to challenge the normality of its site expression.

I sat under Gordon Clark, who was a presuppositionalist and one of my favourite Reformed theologians. I greatly admire much of his theological perspective, especially in contrast to Van Til, another presuppositionalist and another very Calvinistic thinker - though it's a shame the two came to such a bitter challenge in other areas. Still, when it comes to apologetics, I find the popular and philosophical efforts of R.C. Sproul and C.S. Lewis to not only be much more accessible and common, but also more convincingly reasonable. Though they're two of my favourite Christian authors, I disagree with Sproul and Lewis on many things, and much prefer the theology of Clark, so I'm glad when one can find gracious and amicable dialogue intent to lift both the peace and purity of familial debate on issues in which we disagree.

[NomosCharis]

Hi Scott,

Okay. I have read everything you wrote including your article on the Cosmological Argument. Hopefully, I can keep this shorter than my previous post.

I'm going to try and reply to you in a bit of a different style now, since, as you pointed out, it can be difficult following the thread when we are just quoting each other back and forth.

I appreciate you taking so much time to write such long responses. It tells me that you care a lot about me understanding your view. But one of the things that makes them so long is that they seem to be repeating the same points quite a bit (in the same post I mean). I often finish one of your paragraphs feeling a little unrewarded for the effort I put into understanding it, because it is simply repeating a point that you already made before. Now, I partially take the blame for this. I have been imprecise with how I address your points and have been simply quoting your comments directly rather than focusing on your fundamental ideas (so my replies have been very fragmented). I will change that method now. Believe me when I say that I am honestly trying to see your side, and I think I do see it. You communicate it very clearly. I know you must have tons of new stuff to say, so don't feel pressured to repeat what you've already said. If anything, just reference me to a previous comment.

In this response, I would like to do 5 things: 1) Clarify my position in light of your most recent objections. 2) Address your defense of the Scriptures you used to support your claims (particularly the claim that the Bible teaches us that we should simply presuppose it is the true word of God without reasoning to that conclusion). 3) Present what I think are the Biblical arguments for why we should accept Scripture as the true Word of God. 4) Look at your response to my exposition of Romans 1:20. 5) Defend the Cosmological Argument in light of your article's criticism, and, finally, 6) Point out what I believe to be the biggest problems with Presuppositionalism, and why I still disagree with it as the preferable method of apologetics.

I have tried to make my claim as clear as possible. All men presuppose two things in their reasoning: their own existence (as opposed to God's), and logic. They do this because there is no other choice. It is impossible for men to presuppose anything else (including God's existence).

Now, I do not deny that God is ultimately the grounds and the foundation for all of our logical thinking (just like he is the grounds and foundation for our very existence), but what I do deny is that any person is (or could be) aware of this before they are aware of something else first--themselves. God must be our conclusion, not our premise. The first thing we recognize is, "I exist," and then we recognize, "and there is one that made me." It is not in the reverse order: "There is one that made me, and I exist." Neither can God say to me, "I am your maker," unless he first says to me, "You exist," for until he says the latter I neither exist nor is he my maker. I do not think God before I think me. God thinks God before he thinks me, but he IS God. Since I am not God, I must start with myself and arrive at God. God is God's starting "presupposition" (if it be proper to so speak), but he is not MY starting presupposition. I am. Again, this is not because God is dependent upon my thinking but rather it is simply because God is not me. There is no other possibility. My thinking starts with me, and it concludes with God.

Neither does this mean that logic is true apart from God, or that God is subservient to logic. God is logic. Is God true apart from God? Is God subservient to God? Nor does this demand that I am presupposing God's existence in my use of logic, for as I said above I cannot immediately recognize that logic is God until logic leads me to that conclusion. I agree that God accounts for logic in the same way that God accounts for himself, but many atheists know that logic accounts for itself while not recognizing it as God. It is not true then that one must acknowledge it's divine nature in order to accept it and use it. God is the source of my knowledge, but he is not what I know first. He is first in the order of all being, but not in the order of our knowing. I hope you can see the difference.

That is my claim, and apparently you have denied it all. At this point you might bring up the Scriptures you referenced before in your defense. You have vigorously defended your use of all of them, so let us examine your case:

Proverbs 1:7. Firstly, you seem to forget that you were originally trying to use this verse to prove that we should presuppose the truth of Scripture, not to prove that everyone presupposes the existence of God. The existence of God and the truth of Scripture are two things my friend, not one. They are distinct, and you conveniently confuse them as if they were the very same thing. 2ndly, notice that even you were willing to clarify "wisdom and knowledge" (when you were defending Col 2:3) as referring to "GENUINE wisdom and knowledge" (i.e. any wisdom and knowledge "worth-having"--as I suppose). You concede that people have a kind of wisdom and knowledge outside of Christ that is not genuine. Likewise, I can interpret this verse the same way: Any "GENUINE" knowledge begins with the fear of the LORD. So, there IS knowledge that is NOT the fear of the LORD (and perhaps even "preceding" the fear of the LORD), but any "genuine" knowledge, any knowledge "worth-having," begins with a fear of the LORD. There. Now we have both interpreted similar Scriptures the same way. We can agree.

John 14:6. You deny that Jesus is meaning to say that he is the "saving" way, truth, and life. In the context, Thomas is asking Jesus how they could know the way to where he was going (which was to the Father), and Jesus replies, "...I am the way" (i.e. the way "to the Father," "the way to heaven," "the way to be saved"). "...[I am] the truth and the life," should be understood in the same way. Jesus caps this in the very next phrase, where he clarifies that this was all about how a person is supposed to "come unto the Father." It should be interpreted in light of the context. I believe that Jesus is God, and that God is truth itself, but if you are trying to use this Scripture to say that people presuppose the man Jesus or else they don't have any true beliefs, I'm sorry, the verse just cannot be stretched that far.

Col 2:3. As I said above (under my comments about Proverbs 1:7), even you admit that this verse does not prove that people who do not presuppose Christ and the truth of Scripture have no knowledge.

Rom 3:4. God is the source of all truth, and is even truth itself, but this Scripture doesn't even prove that much. It says, "Let God be true." At the very most, this could only be taken to say, "God is true." It doesn't say, "God is truth," or even that God is "the source of truth." Much less could it say what you want it to say.

Now, you make the claim that, besides simply presupposing it is so, there is no other way to consistently reason to the truth of Scripture. You say that this is because appealing to anything other than the Scripture automatically disqualifies the case, since it looks to some other standard besides the word and revelation of God to "verify" (or, as I will say, "bear-witness-to") the word and revelation of God. And since the Christian worldview (and Scripture itself) claims that God's word and revelation is our supreme authority, this discredits the Christian worldview outright before we even get off the ground.

That is your claim, and in reply I have many things to say. 1st, you already know that my position is entirely unharmed by this argument of yours, because Scripture is not the only "word and revelation" of God (as your argument implies). Remember, I distinguish between two kinds of "words and revelations" of God, and both are true "words and revelations" of God. Therefore, they have the same divine authority. It's as simple as this: They bear witness to each other. Logic bears witness to Scripture, and Scripture bears witness to Logic. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established," amen? Has God left us with a single witness to his written word? Logic proving Scripture is nothing other than God's word agreeing with God's word--one kind of revelation from God "bearing-witness" to another kind of revelation from the same God. It's that simple.

But, besides the fact that your claim does nothing to defeat my position, there is a more serious problem with your claim, and that is that God himself, in the Scriptures, verifies his written word through evidence other than the Scriptures, and he tells us in the Scriptures that they "bear-witness" to his word so that we will have reason to know it is truly his word (that is their purpose). For example: the Lord meant his "signs and wonders" to "bear-witness" to the testimony of the Prophets and the Apostles. They were the true and living God acting in ways that only he could to approve of the word being spoken (and written), demonstrating (in a spectacular, undeniable way) that it was from him. This is the function that the Bible says signs and wonders perform (Exodus 4:5, Deu. 4:35, Acts 2:22, Hebrews 2:4). Therefore, if you deny that they give conclusive reasons to accept that Scripture is his word then you are disagreeing with the teaching of Scripture and doing what you accused me of--invalidating the Christian world-view by default. But miracles are not Scripture. Scripture records miracles, but miracles are not the same as Scripture. They are extra-biblical evidence for Scripture.

Furthermore, as a Calvinist you would certainly agree with me that whatever takes place, anywhere or anytime, is brought about by God's power. So when prophecy is fulfilled in the earth (as in the case of Alexander the great, or King Cyrus, or Christ himself) it is God acting to bring those prophecies to pass, and that action, that fulfillment of prophecy, is evidence that the Scripture is his word (we know this from verses like Deu 18:21-22, Isaiah 41:22-23; 44:7-8). But the event that comes to pass is obviously not Scripture. It confirms Scripture, but it is not itself Scripture. Thus, the fulfillment of prophecy is an extra-biblical witness (from God the Father) to the divine authorship of the Bible.

These are extra-biblical reasons to accept the Bible as true and divine. God gives them for that purpose and tells us, in the Bible, they are for that purpose. He expects us to conclude that the Bible is his word because Logic compels us to agree with this evidence he provides. If you still insist that to prove the Bible is God's word with extra-biblical evidence is unbiblical, then call the God of the Bible unbiblical, because he proves the truth of his word with extra-biblical evidence.

Now I would like to move on to your treatment of Romans 1:20. This is the bedrock-bottom of my philosophy of apologetics right here. First, I would like to clarify something I said in my last reply.

When I said in my last reply, "3) None of this would be true if they were interpreting such evidence WRONGLY (i.e. in a way that leads them to reject God's attributes)," I can see why that wording sounded confusing to you. Paul is clear in the context that men DO reject God's attributes in exchange for a lie, and that they suppress the truth. But I insist that that is NOT because of their INTERPRETATION of the EVIDENCE. It is rather an act of their will against the evidence (the things that are made) AND their correct interpretation of the evidence. In other words, their interpretation is good; their response is not. In the face of their correct interpretation, they still deny God. So you see, I agree that men reject God's attributes and that they suppress the truth. I only disagree that they do so by incorrectly interpreting the evidence around them. They CORRECTLY interpret the evidence, and then they willfully reject what their interpretation says is true.

Such a fact is proven by the phrase, "being understood by the things that are made." Look at those two words, "being-understood." The Greek word there means, "to comprehend, to heed, to perceive." Don't you see what this is saying? By the things made, God is UNDERSTOOD by the unregenerate! By the things made, God is COMPREHENDED, and PERCEIVED by the unregenerate. That is the crucial point. They do not interpret the evidence wrong, because by that very evidence they know God! If they interpreted the evidence wrongly it would never yield such understanding in their minds. They would never come to a knowledge of God in the first place. What then would they be suppressing? That's why they are without excuse--not because the evidence is merely made AVAILABLE to them, but because the evidence is understood by them!

What a testimony to the total depravity of man! He interprets the evidence rightly and STILL rejects it. Contrary to what he knows AND contrary to what he reasons! Contrary to what everything around him tells him is true, and contrary to even what he AGREES is true. His heart still will not submit to what his mind agrees with.

That is far more wicked than a man who just doesn't interpret the evidence correctly (even if because of sinful presuppositions). Such a man would be unaware of how much good evidence he is rejecting. He cannot knowingly reject what he doesn't understand. Since he understands less, he is rejecting less, and therefore his resulting guilt is less. In fact, for this reason I believe I am affirming man's depravity better than you.

Now, let's look at your treatment of the Cosmological Argument (which, by the way, I thought was very well stated, argued, and written; as a matter of fact, I think I might like to post a full response to it in appreciation of it):

First of all, I would like to point out that it cannot possibly be true that the Cosmological Argument is unsound, because if it were men would have an excuse for not accepting its conclusion, and according to Romans 1:20 they do not. Remember, that verse clearly states that it is "BY THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE" that men understand God. So I must conclude that if Scripture is true the Cosmological Argument is sound, and if the Cosmological Argument is not sound, Scripture is not sound. It is no less than the inerrancy of the Bible that is at stake.

Your central criticism is that there is no a-priori or a-posteriori reasons for accepting the law of cause-and-effect without somehow assuming the existence of God.

My reply is that, while I agree with you that (in a way suitable for our purposes) there are no STRICTLY a-posteriori reasons, I can easily supply you with 2 a-priori reasons (that do not directly appeal to God) for why we cannot logically deny this law.

But before I do that, I want to eliminate an anticipated objection that will come from you. I will begin by asking you a question. You used a "3-sided-square" as an example of something that we can know is impossible a-priori. Would you then agree with me that it is acceptable to say that an atheist can a-priori dismiss the possibility of a 3-sided-square without appealing the existence of God?

I think you should say yes, since the only reason you cited this example in the first place was to contrast it with the law of cause-and-effect. You were basically saying, "If we are going to validate causality a-priori without already assuming the existence of God, we have to find support for it SIMILAR to the support for validating that "3-sided-squares are impossible." There was no other reason for you to even mention this example.

But I suspect you would want to say no. You would want to say that people have to assume logic before they can dismiss 3-sided-squares, and they need God to do that. But if that is your appeal, then what were you contrasting "3-sided-squares" with the first premise of the Kalam for in the first place? What difference is there between the two?

The fact is, there is no point in making any difference between these two things. "3-sided-square" is not a concept about logic, it is a concept about squares. Likewise, the CA is not an argument for logic, it is an argument for God. It is meant to show that the existence of God is logical, not that logic is logical. There is no point in demanding that it go further and prove the validity of logic itself, since that is not even its intention. No one demands that the professor prove the validity of logic itself when he demonstrates that 3-sided-squares do not exist. The only intention of the CA is to show us THAT IF WE WILL BE LOGICAL we must accept God's existence. It does not have to do more than that.

Now, since almost all people, Christian or not, claim that they want to be logical, that is a powerful point. But, if someone wishes to be obstinate and argue whether logic itself is valid, we can simply point out that they are using logic to do that, since they have no other choice. We do not need to appeal to its divine source to demonstrate this. Logic cannot be questioned without being assumed. Every thought is governed by it, even the thought that it might not be valid. Therefore, it cannot be thought to be invalid regardless of whether one acknowledges its foundation in the nature of God.

Therefore, I propose that IF I can find an a-priori proof that establishes the law of cause-and-effect that is logical and comparable to a-priori proofs against "3-sided-squares" and such--then that should be enough to end your criticism of the CA.

In fact I can provide you with two:

1) An effect without a cause is an analytically false concept. That is, it is one that is false by definition, and therefore it cannot logically be true or even thought. This is because the word "effect" is defined as "anything that is caused to occur;" just like the word "cause" is defined as "anything that produces an effect." These definitions are not arbitrary. There is no other way to define these words. Use any synonyms you like. Substitute "event" or "happening" for the word "effect." You will eventually get the same thing. An "effect" by definition is whatever is caused to occur by something else. Therefore, an "uncaused-effect" is a meaningless, self-falsifying phrase. You might as well claim to be able to think of "married-bachelors" or "3-sided-squares," because "uncaused-effects" are just as internally incoherent.

2) Nothing does not exist. It is defined as that which does not exist. It is non-being, and "non-being... being" is nonsense. "Non-being" cannot even be thought "to-be" in any possible circumstance. It logically cannot be. But if "non-being" cannot "be" ...then it cannot "be"-a-cause. That which is not, is not a cause. And, as pointed out above, that which is not a cause does not (by definition) produce any effects, since that's what a cause is. If it produced an effect, it would be a cause, so obviously that which cannot be a cause does not produce any effects in any possible world. Think about it: Could a "married-bachelor" ever produce an effect in any possible world? Of course it couldn't. Why not? Because that which cannot "be" cannot be a cause. Could a thing be the efficient cause of itself beginning to exist in any possible world? No. Why not? Because that which cannot "be" (such as a thing before it exists) cannot be it's own cause. "Nothing" cannot be. Therefore, "nothing" cannot be a cause. To say otherwise is to violate the law of non-contradiction.

If you try to deny this by continuing to insist that you are able to think of possible worlds were "uncaused-effects" exist, I will simply go back to the above two points and insist that, logically, you cannot think of what you say you can. Anyone can claim to be able to think of logically impossible worlds, but it's never anything more than a claim. You know that.

Now that I have defended the law of cause-and-effect, and the CA, I would like to state why I am still a Classicist by pointing out the serious problems that I see persisting with Presuppositionalism:

a) The best it can do is end in an intellectual "tie" between two equally "rational" positions: Christian-Theism, and utter meaninglessness:

The central premise of presuppositionalism is that Biblical Christianity cannot be rationally established. It can only be presupposed, apart from any reasons whatsoever, and unless it is thus presupposed no one can rationally establish it.

Now, were this true it would necessarily mean that there is no reason to accept our position. The atheist will not let you deny that. To offer any reason (including transcendental arguments) would contradict the central premise of presuppositionalism. What shall we say then? Shall we point out that there also is no reason for the non-believer to accept his position (that his worldview is also circular)? Then we have two positions, "Christian-Theism" and "NON-Christian-Theism" (as it were), and there are no reasons for accepting either position. Therefore, the acceptance of either one is equally rational. You cannot use reason to accept or deny either one. The only way to avoid that conclusion is to deny the central premise of presuppositionalism and begin to offer some reason, some linear logic, for why one view is false and the other is true. Even if we argue transcendentally, that is still a linear argument ("reductio ad absurdum") the conclusion of which is not in the premise either explicitly or implicitly. You can't have it both ways. It seems to me then that the only way to avoid this intellectual "tie" is to abandon presuppositionalism.

If we refuse to do this we must concede to the atheist that there are no reasons we can give for why he should accept our position. He is intellectually justified then if he chooses to not accept it, and no one (not even God) could disagree. If he does not WANT to accept it, and there are no reasons FOR him to accept it, then he should NOT accept it. That is self-evident. This is true even if his world-view ends in absurdity and falsehood. Men have been willing to go that far in the past to avoid presupposing the God of Scripture. They will go there again, and they SHOULD, unless there is some reason for them not to. What difference does it make to them if OUR presupposition says that THEIRS is false, illogical, and absurd, if their presupposition of choice tells them that there is no difference between truth and falsehood and that all is meaningless?

b) It is riddled with glaring inconsistencies, such as:

1. In one breath, it says that unless a person first presupposes the truth of Christian-Theism they cannot establish the truth of Christian-Theism, but in the next breath, it says that the truth of Christian Theism is not a premise in their arguments (which attempt to establish Christian-Theism).

2. In one breath, it says that Christian-Theism (which teaches that all views contrary to itself are impossible) must be presupposed without being logically demonstrated, but in the next breath, it attempts to logically demonstrate the impossibility of all contrary views.

3. In one breath, it says that the reason why men cannot reason correctly is that all men sinfully presuppose their own autonomy RATHER THAN the existence of God, but in the next breath, it says that all men actually presuppose the existence of God.

c) Therefore, for these two reasons (a and b) presuppositionalism does not eliminate every excuse the non-believer might have, and it leaves intellectual room for his unbelief (contra-Rom 1:20).

I'm sure you have something to say in reply. I am eager to hear it (whenever you have the time). My only request is that you read this post carefully, and really try to understand what I have said. I believe that what I have written here is a response to the points you've already written, so the only need you would have of repeating your points is if you wish to clarify them in light of what I have said here.

Thanks and God bless,

Jonathan.

[T. Scott Morgan]

Nomos,

I apologize for taking my time to get back to you. I’ve been on vacation a couple of weeks, without internet another week, looking for work, just moved, and I’ve had a lot going on and wanted to be sure I spent plenty of time on your reply in the meantime.

I do have a lot to say in response to your last reply, but first I have something else I need to ask of you brother. I really am enjoying our discussion, and I appreciate the thought and time that you’ve been putting into your responses. And because I appreciate it, I don’t want to dishonor the time you’ve put in by not writing you back an in-depth reply. However, I also need to say that for your own sake I think it would be best if you do some reading before we continue this any further. It is clear to me that you are very confused on what the claims of presuppositionalism are, and what they mean (but don’t be dismayed, that is normal to us all for a while). I admit that I may be partially to blame for this, because I know my explanations have not been very clear at times and hence I may have only added to the conclusion. (I appreciate you suggesting that I communicate my position very clearly, but I disagree ). I will give my reply below because I want to do what I can to help you understand my position. But the writings of more credible presuppositional apologists are going to be much more useful for you I think.

So, I have put together a list of reading material at the end of my reply, and I’d appreciate it if you would take a look at it and share some of your thoughts. You are welcome to reply to my comments below if you wish (I hope you will at least read them), but for the sake of the productivity of this thread I won’t be responding again until you’ve shared some of your thoughts on some of the reading material. There’s no sense in debating presuppositionalism if you aren’t familiar with what presuppositionalism is. Seeing as you too are a Calvinist, I am sure you have experienced your fair share of encounters with Arminians who basically just level attacks against straw men, so I trust you understand how frustrating that can be.

I for one am not a fan of posters who simply give as their defense, “Here, go read this: [link],” which is another reason I will be including my comments below on your last reply. But if you’ll forgive me for being a hypocrite, I simply think that these materials will do a better job of explaining the method and answering your questions than I can in the context of simultaneously trying to respond to particular points you’re bringing up. It would simply be better in your case, I think, to start with the basics, rather than hitting on specifics, and then come back with objections later if you still have them after becoming more familiar with the presuppositional method. I will include the list at the end of my reply.

Now, as far as your reply is concerned, I would like to structure my response similar to your own, and simply defend against your 6 goals. However, I still see a lot of value in being able to see my comments along-side the specific statements or points I am responding to. So in order to quote you without fragmenting your reply more than I have to, I’m going to simply repost your entire post in blue and insert my comments here and there in black. That way the context of every statement I choose to respond to can be easily seen without being distracted by the big bulky ‘QUOTE’ thing. I will also place a “…” at the beginning and ending of a comment that I interrupt mid-paragraph or mid-sentence, so that your paragraph structure will stay intact. I will also label each comment of mine with a dark red number, to make it easy to refer back to them from time to time if I need to.
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I’m going to try and reply to you in a bit of a different style now, since, as you pointed out, it can be difficult following the thread when we are just quoting each other back and forth.

I appreciate you taking so much time to write such long responses. It tells me that you care a lot about me understanding your view. But one of the things that makes them so long is that they seem to be repeating the same points quite a bit (in the same post I mean). I often finish one of your paragraphs feeling a little unrewarded for the effort I put into understanding it, because it is simply repeating a point that you already made before. Now, I partially take the blame for this. I have been imprecise with how I address your points and have been simply quoting your comments directly rather than focusing on your fundamental ideas (so my replies have been very fragmented). I will change that method now. Believe me when I say that I am honestly trying to see your side, and I think I do see it. You communicate it very clearly. I know you must have tons of new stuff to say, so don’t feel pressured to repeat what you’ve already said. If anything, just reference me to a previous comment.

(1) This is a problem I have in a lot of my writing, that I am aware of . I like to drill a point until the reader can’t forget it (because I often run into people who ignore what I’d like for them to consider). I will try to refrain from repeating myself within the same post as much as possible, but I also have to say that I’ve felt like my repeating myself has been necessary here. Most of the stuff you have said in your last reply I know for a fact I have already addressed in our discussion. And I still do not think you are addressing the most fundamental and critical issues that I have raised (particularly that one that I did drill so much in my previous reply, which I will discuss again toward the end). I would hate to think that you are trying to talk me into simply forgetting about what you may not have an answer for. So I must repeat them until a satisfactory answer is provided.

In this response, I would like to do 5 things: 1) Clarify my position in light of your most recent objections. 2) Address your defense of the Scriptures you used to support your claims (particularly the claim that the Bible teaches us that we should simply presuppose it is the true word of God without reasoning to that conclusion). 3) Present what I think are the Biblical arguments for why we should accept Scripture as the true Word of God. 4) Look at your response to my exposition of Romans 1:20. 5) Defend the Cosmological Argument in light of your article’s criticism, and, finally, 6) Point out what I believe to be the biggest problems with Presuppositionalism, and why I still disagree with it as the preferable method of apologetics.

I have tried to make my claim as clear as possible. All men presuppose two things in their reasoning: their own existence (as opposed to God’s), and logic. …

(2) Let me stop you here. Two things:

First, you claim that men presuppose their own existence (as opposed to God’s). You seem to be misunderstanding what I mean by “presupposition.” I am talking about man’s philosophical starting point in reasoning. You, however, seem to be talking about man’s psychological starting point. There is a difference. Of course we psychologically start with ourselves as the immediate agent of our own thought and experience. That is, as you have said, we must recognize ourselves as thinking agents before we can move onto other things. But this is not what we are concerned with here. What we are concerned with here is man’s philosophical starting point. Our concerns have nothing to do with the order in which we recognize God’s existence and ourselves as logically thinking beings. It has everything to do with the question of what the necessary preconditions are for any rational thought. Simply stated, forget about the fact that we psychologically become aware of ourselves before we become aware of anything else; the simple claim here is that knowledge itself is not even a possibility apart from the eternal, unchanging nature of a Creator who’s nature both defines and sustains reality. Hence, the existence of that Creator is a necessary precondition to rational thought, or anything for that matter. So by “presupposition” what we mean is that an assumption in logic already (subconsciously) makes use of a further, deeper assumption in God. Otherwise the assumption in logic would not be made for the subconscious mind would find no ground upon which to hold to such an assumption. To say that something (God) is foundational to something else (logic) is to say that that something presupposes that something else. My look at Romans 1 below should shed some further light on this.

(3) Second, you claim that men presuppose logic. Not once in your last reply to me did you address my often repeated criticism (and again, this is why I find it necessary that it be repeated!) that you are holding to two contradictory points of view: that “logic is a revelation of God” and that “God presupposes logic.” As far as I am concerned, you have already conceded your claim that logic is man’s most basic presupposition. Because I’ve addressed, in great abundance, the problem I see with this claim and your own claim that logic is a revelation of God, yet I have still yet to see an answer to that problem. I will go over this again toward the end of my reply, as I would rather use such a strong point to conclude with rather than to deal with it again now.

(4) Let me also just point out, that the question we are asking here when we speak of ultimate presuppositions, is the question of what accounts for everything else. So in other words, if you say that we are our ultimate presupposition, then you are saying that we are what accounts for reality. Hence, to say that we ourselves are our most basic presupposition is to say that we are God. Unless, again, you are prepared to admit that we are not talking about the same thing when we say “presupposition” (which of course I would suggest you do!). Or, to say that logic is our ultimate presupposition is to say that logic is what accounts for reality (including God!). You will come back by saying that this is not true, because “logic is God.” But you see you cannot assert such a thing without also presupposing God! If you are going to be consistent with your claims, you must suggest that your knowledge of “logic being God” is acquired through an appeal to logic before an appeal to God, in which case you can bring no argument against my claim that to say logic is our ultimate presupposition is to say that logic accounts for reality, including God, for you are saying that God must be accounted for by logic (i.e. through logical reasoning), not that logic must be accounted for by God!

… They do this because there is no other choice. It is impossible for men to presuppose anything else (including God’s existence).

(5) I certainly don’t understand what supposedly makes it impossible. This seems to be a mere assertion. There is nothing stopping God from creating men in such a way that they possess a natural sense of His existence. And that sense of divinity (what Calvin called the sensus divinitatis – an inherent awareness of God) is really all it is that we refer to when we say that man “presupposes” God. This sense of divinity, which we all possess but are since the fall no longer consciously aware of, is the sense that gives rise to epistemological presuppositions (God being the Creator and Sustainer of all things, including minds capable of producing rational thoughts), without which no rational thought whatsoever would take place.

Now, I do not deny that God is ultimately the grounds and the foundation for all of our logical thinking (just like he is the grounds and foundation for our very existence), …

(6) See Comments 4 and 5. You may not mean to deny that, but it is precisely what you are denying, unless if you are prepared to admit that we are not even talking about the same thing when we say “presupposition.” That God is ultimately the grounds and the foundation for all of our logical thinking is what we mean by saying that all rational thought presupposes God (just as all of creation presupposes God, seeing as it would not be there without Him). It appears that you are agreeing with me without even realizing that you are agreeing with me, because you have yet to see your inconsistencies.

… but what I do deny is that any person is (or could be) aware of this before they are aware of something else first—themselves. …

(7) Refer to Comments 2 and 6. You are not using the word “presupposition” in the same way I am. We are not talking about awareness.

… God must be our conclusion, not our premise. The first thing we recognize is, “I exist,” and then we recognize, “and there is one that made me.” It is not in the reverse order: “There is one that made me, and I exist.” Neither can God say to me, “I am your maker,” unless he first says to me, “You exist,” for until he says that latter I neither exist nor is he my maker. I do not think God before I think me. …

(8) But what is the precondition to your ability to recognize or think anything at all?

… God thinks God before he thinks me, but he IS God. Since I am not God, I must start with myself and arrive at God. God is God’s starting “presupposition” (if it be proper to so speak), but he is not MY starting presupposition. I am. Again, this is not because God is dependent upon my thinking but rather it is simply because God is not me. There is no other possibility. My thinking starts with me, and it concludes with God.

(9) Again, see Comments 2 through 5

Neither does this mean that logic is true apart from God, or that God is subservient to logic. God is logic. Is God true apart from God? Is God subservient to God? Nor does this demand that I am presupposing God’s existence in my use of logic …

(10) Once you recognize the real issue here, you will see that that is exactly what you are doing. This discussion is an epistemological one, not a psychological one. If logic is not true apart from God, then coupled with the assumption of logic is the assumption of God.

Nomos, look. God is logic. OK. Logic is not true apart from God. OK. But then what does that mean when one subconsciously assumes (as they do every time they reason) that logic is real and possible? First of all do you understand what I mean by a subconscious assumption? Perhaps the more academically acceptable term would be unconscious assumption. That is, thoughts or assumptions that are not directly accessible to ordinary introspection, but which the mind entertains nonetheless as a “silent” belief, if you will, that gives rise to further assumptions. Basically, something you’ve really got to sit back and self-consciously think about before you realize you actually think it, because the assumption is such a basic belief you wouldn’t even normally recognize that you have it.

So my question again was, if God is logic, and logic is not true apart from God, then what does that mean when one subconsciously assumes that logic is real and possible? How can you say that it means anything other than that God’s existence is therefore further being subconsciously presupposed? If logic is not true apart from God, then you can’t separate a presupposition in logic from a presupposition in God. This has nothing to do with recognizing anything. We’re simply talking right now about consistency in one’s beliefs and assumptions. This is why we ask the atheist the question: How do you account for the laws of logic? Because of what you just said – that God is logic. The atheist has no grounds for placing any trust in the reliability of logical laws if he is going to deny the existence of the very One who accounts for those laws. The atheist does separate logic from God. He asserts that logic exists regardless of whether God exists. That is the reason why he believes he does not need God in his worldview in order to be able to consistently make use of logic. But you yourself have denied that logic can be separated from God. So you should not be in disagreement with me when I say that one cannot consistently make use of logic if there is no God in their worldview. But if you would agree with me on that much, then why in the world would you maintain a method of classical apologetics, which treats the unbeliever as one who can in fact make legitimate usage of logic regardless of whether God exists?

You cannot say that God is logic, and that logic is not true apart from God, and yet then turn right around and say that logical thought is possible regardless of whether God exists (which IS what you are saying unless if you are completely missing the point of our entire discussion. Which, again, I think you are.). But think about that for a minute. If logical thought is therefore only possible because of God’s existence (or to put it in your words, logic is not true apart from God), then does not one’s usage of logic already point to God? Yet that is all we mean when we say that all knowledge presupposes God. Not that we “recognize God before ourselves,” but that His existence is the precondition to rational thought, and that therefore the assumption in logic makes further use of an assumption in God (the sense of divinity) even though most won’t realize that to be the case. You do not need to come to the recognition that logic is God in order to presuppose God’s existence in your thought process. The simple fact is that there would be no logic if there were no God, and thus the fact that there is logic presupposes that there is God.

… for as I said above I cannot immediately recognize that logic is God until logic leads me to that conclusion. I agree that God accounts for logic in the same way that God accounts for himself, but many atheists know that logic accounts for itself while not recognizing it as God. It is not true then that one must acknowledge it’s divine nature in order to accept it and use it. …

(11) Contra Romans 1:18ff. See my comments on Romans 1 below. Also review Comment 4.

… God is the source of my knowledge, but he is not what I know first. He is first in the order of all being, but not in the order of our knowing. I hope you can see the difference.

(12) Oh I can see the difference (when I understand “the order of our knowing” to refer to the psychological order you have spoken of). The problem is, as I have shown, that difference is not relevant to our discussion here. Our concerns are not with what we recognize, but rather with what all knowledge presupposes (i.e. makes use of) subconsciously.

That is my claim, and apparently you have denied it all. At this point you might bring up the Scriptures you referenced before in your defense. You have vigorously defended your use of all of them, so let us examine your case:

Proverbs 1:7
Firstly, you seem to forget that you were originally trying to use this verse to prove that we should presuppose the truth of Scripture, not to prove that everyone presupposes the existence of God. The existence of God and the truth of Scripture are two things my friend, not one. They are distinct, and you conveniently confuse them as if they were the very same thing. …

(13) I don’t recall having ever used Proverbs 1:7 to suggest that everyone presupposes the existence of God. I have used Romans 1:18ff to prove that much. Though you could draw the implication from Colossians 2:3 that everyone presupposes God, since obviously non-Christians have knowledge, and yet all of the treasures of wisdom are hidden in Christ. Not some, and not just religious ideas, but all knowledge.

… 2ndly, notice that even you were willing to clarify “wisdom and knowledge” (when you were defending Col 2:3) as referring to “GENUINE wisdom and knowledge” (i.e. any wisdom and knowledge “worth-having”—as I suppose). You concede that people have a kind of wisdom and knowledge outside of Christ that is not genuine. …

(14) When I brought up the term “genuine wisdom” you will notice I was careful to clarify what I meant by it. My whole point in presenting such a term was to point out that there is a kind of knowledge that does not begin with Christ (hence the fact that I pointed to this verse in order to make the claim that we need to make sure we begin with Christ). So please don’t act like you’re refuting something I have said by suggesting that I “concede that people have a kind of wisdom and knowledge outside of Christ.” I haven’t conceded anything. Rather, that is in fact a part of my whole argument. Also make sure you see the paragraphs under Comment 17.

… Likewise, I can interpret this verse the same way: Any “GENUINE” knowledge begins with the fear of the LORD. So, there IS knowledge that is NOT the fear of the LORD (and perhaps even “preceding” the fear of the LORD), but any “genuine” knowledge, any knowledge “worth-having,” begins with a fear of the LORD. There. Now we have both interpreted similar Scriptures the same way. We can agree.

(15) Well if we can agree on that then you must concede your position that the truth about God can be acquired without presupposing Him and His authority. For, according to your own words, how can a knowledge of God that is somehow acquired apart from first fearing the LORD be a knowledge “worth-having”? Hence, if one were to reason their way toward God on the basis of humanistic philosophy as opposed to on a basis of fearing the LORD, that would not be knowledge “worth-having,” would it? It would not be a true knowledge of God. Therefore, according to your own admission, a knowledge which fails to begin with the fear of the LORD will not end at a proper knowledge of God. We must first fear the LORD (which obviously necessitates presupposing Him and the authority of His Word) before we can arrive at knowledge of Him that is “worth-having.”

John 14:6. You deny that Jesus is meaning to say that he is the “saving” way, truth, and life. In the context, Thomas is asking Jesus how they could know the way to where he was going (which was to the Father), and Jesus replies, “…I am the way” (i.e. the way “to the Father,” “the way to heave,” “the way to be saved”). “…[I am] the truth and the life,” should be understood in the same way. Jesus caps this in the very next phrase, where he clarifies that this was all about how a person is supposed to “come unto the Father.” It should be interpreted in light of the context. I believe that Jesus is God, and that God is truth itself, but if you are trying to use this Scripture to say that people presuppose the man Jesus or else they don’t have any true beliefs, I’m sorry, the verse just cannot be stretched that far.

(16) Nomos I have never denied that Jesus was saying that He is the “saving” way, truth, and life. I think you must have read that into my post. I have simply suggested that I don’t find what you point out to be problematic to my position. My precise point was that to avoid Christ in your thought at any point is to be misled, untruthful, and spiritually dead. Those who are in Christ think their thoughts after Christ. Those who are not in Christ do not think their thoughts after Christ. Where is the problem with that and your interpretation? Obviously those who are in Christ are those being saved! My only point is that because those who are in Christ are to think their thoughts after Christ (since He is the “saving” way, the truth, and the life) they should therefore continue to do so in every realm of the Christian life, including that of apologetical argumentation. People who do not presuppose Christ in their thought are not thinking Christ’s thoughts after Him, and therefore do not hold to the “saving” truth.

The only reason I mentioned this in the context of apologetics is because my point is that the apologist should not set aside his Christian commitments (which is what he does when he stops presupposing Christ in order to meet the unbeliever on ‘common ground’) when it comes to defending the faith. But if you’re not happy with this verse, then I can simply point you to others, such as Rev. 3:14, where Christ alone can designate Himself as “the Amen” and preface His announcements with “Amen, Amen I say to you…” (John 3:3, 5, 11, etc.). Christ and His word are self-attestingly true. I believe you’ve admitted to this above, and I showed you in Comment 15 how that admission necessitates a presuppositional method in apologetics.

Col 2:3. As I said above (under my comments about Proverbs 1:7), even you admit that this verse does not prove that people who do not presuppose Christ and the truth of Scripture have no knowledge.

(17) And yet that has never been my claim. See Comment 14. Though, again, this verse does prove that people who have knowledge have that knowledge only because they presuppose God (since in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge), but I don't recall having used this verse in order to make that claim before now. Additionally, actually, no, what you state here is not what I “admitted.” Not that “people who do not presuppose Christ and the truth of Scripture have no knowledge,” but rather that there are people who acquire knowledge even though they do not maintain a worldview that acknowledges Christ as its ultimate presupposition. They still, ultimately, presuppose Christ however, as Romans 1 tells us.

This is why I made the distinction you pointed out between knowledge and “genuine” knowledge. I did not cite Colossians 2:3 with the intention to prove that all men presuppose God. Romans 1 is what leads me to conclude that. Colossians 2:3 and Proverbs 1:7 tell us that wisdom, that is, a true and proper knowledge (a correct philosophy, if you will), can only be acquired by fearing the LORD. That doesn’t mean that those who do not fear the LORD cannot have knowledge, correct. It was never suggested otherwise. It means, as I have already said, that those who do not fear the LORD are misled and untruthful (in the grand scheme of their philosophy on life, that is). That all men presuppose God, however, is another issue altogether. The difference in these two issues is the same as the difference in God’s common grace, and saving grace. God extends a common grace onto all men, allowing all to temporarily live a life here on earth. Yet He extends His saving grace only to some. Likewise, all men are capable of thinking rationally and acquiring knowledge because they have been made in the image of God and have the sensus divinitatis (that is to say, all knowledge presupposes God; Romans 1). However, only some come to a true and “genuine” philosophy (i.e. biblical Christianity) because only some choose to fear the LORD (Prov. 1:7; Col. 2:3). You see, everyone presupposes God’s existence in their heart of hearts, because there would be no rational thought going on upstairs otherwise. However, those who do not begin with the fear of the LORD espouse a presupposition in something else. In other words, they claim to hold to some other ultimate presupposition (but actually don’t).

I never meant to say that people who espouse non-Christian worldviews actually hold to a different ultimate presupposition. Rather, they only claim to hold to a different presupposition, and the whole goal of presuppositional apologetics is to show them that they actually don’t—that they actually presuppose the very God they argue against. Furthermore, I have also never coupled Proverbs 1:7 and Colossians 2:3 with Romans 1:18ff into the same group, as you seem to be trying to present me as having done. They make two entirely different points.

Rom 3:4. God is the source of all truth, and is even truth itself, but this Scripture doesn’t even prove that much. It says, “Let God be true.” At the very most, this could only be taken to say, “God is true.” It doesn’t say, “God is truth,” or even that God is “the source of truth.” Much less could it say what you want it to say.

(18) You just criticized my usage of John 14:6 due to its context, and yet you provide no consideration of the context (much less the entirety of the verse) when I cite Romans 3:4. Yet you try to argue a case anyway by mere assertion. I’m simply going to ask you to try again. I also feel like you’re beginning to look for ways to disagree with me. You admit that you agree with my ultimate conclusion, yet you level the mere assertion against me that “it doesn’t say that here.” Why does it not say that here? Can you give me an argument from the context that demonstrates that God being the source and foundation of truth is not what is in view or otherwise implied by the statement made in verse 4? If you can, your concern for my alleged misuse of Scripture would be appreciated. But if what you have presented here is all you are going to do I’m not sure I understand why you bothered to comment.

Now, you make the claim that, besides simply presupposing it is so, there is no other way to consistently reason to the truth of Scripture. You say that this is because appealing to anything other than the Scripture automatically disqualifies the case, since it looks to some other standard besides the word and revelation of God to “verify” (or, as I will say, “bear-witness-to”) the word and revelation of God. And since the Christian worldview (and Scripture itself) claims that God’s word and revelation is our supreme authority, this discredits the Christian worldview outright before we even get off the ground.

That is your claim, and in reply I have many things to say. 1st, you already know that my position is entirely unharmed by this argument of yours, because Scripture is not the only “word and revelation” of God (as your argument implies). …

(19) You are treading on extremely dangerous ground here. Please re-read my argument. It appeals clearly to special revelation specifically, not general revelation. God’s WORD is our ultimately authority in matters of truth, not God’s creation.

… Remember, I distinguish between two kinds of “words and revelations” of God, and both are true “words and revelations” of God. …

(20) But ONE of them – God’s special revelation to us, in His Word – is the source and rule of faith.

… Therefore, they have the same divine authority. …

(21) Nomos, if you are saying what I think you are saying, you are diving head-first into heresy. The only part of God’s revelation that directly communicates to us is His special revelation, which is His Word, the Scriptures. When we start pointing to God’s general revelation (e.g. when proposing the cosmological argument) without first assuming the authority of His special revelation, and thereby understand what we see according to our own reasoning as opposed to what God Himself has said about it in His Word, then the knowledge you’re talking about acquiring is the product of your own reasoning, and not a product of God’s direct revelation. Does that make sense? If so, then do you see the problem there? You are in essence equating in authority the reasoning of man with the revelation of God. God’s general revelation may be just as divinely “authoritative” as His special revelation, but that is beside the point, isn’t it? Because His general revelation does not itself tell us anything. Rather, we understand His general revelation either according to what He Himself has said about it in His special revelation (i.e. the Bible), or according to our own reasoning. Thus, your point is either a moot one or you are saying that the reasoning of man, simply because all men presuppose logic, a revelation of God, holds just as much authority as the Bible. Logic, as God’s revelation, directly communicates nothing to us. The only knowledge acquired via logic is through our usage of it by our own reasoning.

(22) So no, your position does not pass unharmed by my argument at all. It can’t. Because the question is really this simple: Who’s word determines God’s Word to be what it claims to be? God’s own? Or ours? It is an either-or question. You are wanting to say ours, which is to put God in the dock and man on the bench, because that is the only other option apart from admitting that God’s own Word is what (self-attestingly) determines that Word to be true.

… It’s as simple as this: They bear witness to each other. Logic bears witness to Scripture, and Scripture bears witness to logic. …

(23) Nomos, in whos mind? Have you forgotten the doctrine of total depravity? Again, the point that logic bears witness to Scripture is a moot one. Men will not interpret God’s general revelation as His revelation until they are made regenerate and assume the authority of Scripture. So what good does it do to argue that logic bears witness to Scripture? All observed evidence is interpreted according to underlying presuppositions. Those presuppositions can either be biblical ones, or unbiblical ones. If they are biblical ones, then you’re appealing to Scripture as your authority. If they are unbiblical ones, then you are appealing to a belief in autonomy from God as your authority, and you will not properly reach the conclusion that logic bears witness to Scripture because the sinful presuppositions used in interpretation of the evidence will lead to a sinful conclusion.

Hence, the very acknowledgment of the fact that logic bears witness to Scripture is itself something that can only be acquired through an appeal to Scripture. (After all, where did you learn that logic is a revelation of God?) Which again makes your point a moot one. In the case of attempting to prove the truth of Scripture, there are only two possible starting points – Scripture, or a belief in the autonomy of man (or to put it in other words, God’s authority or man’s authority). When you say that “logic” is our starting point, you are simply saying that your starting point is a belief in the autonomy of man. You’re not adding a third option by simply using different words. Because again, “logic” does not communicate anything to us by itself. It is an abstract thing. Knowledge is only acquired from logic through the usage of it as a tool to produce your own words about something. So the question remains: In your usage of logic, do you begin with an assumption in the authority of Scripture, or an assumption in the ability and necessity for man to be able to give Scripture its credibility by his own reasoning?

… “In the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established,” amen? Has God left us with a single witness to his written word? Logic proving Scripture is nothing other than God’s word agreeing with God’s word—one kind of revelation from God “bearing-witness” to another kind of revelation from the same God. It’s that simple.

(24) See Comments 21 through 23.

But, besides the fact that your claim does nothing to defeat my position, there is a more serious problem with your claim, and that is that God himself, in the Scriptures, verifies his written word through evidence other than the Scriptures, and he tells us in the Scriptures that they “bear-witness” to his word so that we will have reason to know it is truly his word (that is their purpose). For example: the Lord meant his “signs and wonders” to “bear-witness” to the testimony of the Prophets and the Apostles. They were the true and living God acting in ways that only he could to approve of the word being spoken (and written), demonstrating (in a spectacular, undeniable way) that it was from him. This is the function that the Bible says signs and wonders perform (Exodus 4:5, Deu. 4:35, Acts 2:22, Hebrews 2:4). …

(25) Which one of these examples uses evidence outside of the context of the truth of Scripture? Because I don’t see one. See Comment 27 below.

… Therefore, if you deny that they give conclusive reasons to accept that Scripture is his word then you are disagreeing with the teaching of Scripture and doing what you accused me of—invalidating the Christian world-view by default. …

(26) This is a mere assertion, and a false one at that. If I did deny (and I don’t; see Comment 27) that signs and wonders gave reasons to accept the truth of Scripture, that would only indicate that I denied something Scripture says, and not that my apologetic method “invalidates the Christian world-view.” There would in that case be nothing self-defeating about the method of argumentation itself, as is the case with evidentialism.

… But miracles are not Scripture. Scripture records miracles, but miracles are not the same as Scripture. They are extra-biblical evidence for Scripture.

(27) My friend, I believe I have already explained to you in previous posts that no one is denying the presence or even possible usage of extra-biblical evidences. This has nothing to do with our concerns. We are debating an issue of method, not an issue of whether there is any evidence outside of Scripture. That there are extra-biblical evidences is not the point. The point is that if we ground the authority of the Word upon those extra-biblical evidences, then the Word can only be as authoritative as the authority of those evidences and the mind used to interpret them as such. All of that evidence is fine and dandy, if it is used in the context of an apologetic method that assumes the authority of Scripture over the authority of man’s autonomy. So our debate is not so much about the usage of evidence as it is about how we use it. I mean honestly my friend, let’s just think through this. Do you really think that so many Calvinists out there would be so dumb as to think that “miracles are Scripture,” or that historical events pointing to the prophetic nature of the Bible cannot work as additional evidence for its validity? Some of the greatest apologists and theologians today and in recent history have held to the position of presuppositionalism, and yet they came to no such conclusions as “miracles are Scripture” or that historical events pointing to the prophetic nature of Scripture aren’t evidence of anything. So I think you must secretly know that you are not painting an accurate picture of what you oppose here.

(28) So my argument stands, and no your position does not pass unharmed by it at all. If one attempts to prove Scripture without first assuming the authority of Scripture in their apologetic, they in effect disqualify their own position. If A claims to be the highest standard of truth, then by attempting to use B to prove the truth of A you are in effect denying the truth of A at the same time that you are trying to prove it, because of what it claims about itself. This is a devastating problem for the classical position, and it has yet to be addressed head-on by you or anyone I’ve encountered or read. You cannot get around it by pointing to "logic" my friend because logic does not communicate to us like the Scriptures do.

If, however, trust in Christ is founded on logical consistency, historical evidence, scientific arguments, etc., then Christ is yet to be received as the ultimate authority. The various foundations are more authoritative than Christ himself. To use yet another analogy, if belief in Christian truth comes only after the claims of Christ are run through the verification machine of human judgment, then human judgment is still thought to be the ultimate authority. - Richard L. Pratt, Every Thought Captive, 79-80

If you insist on maintaining this idea that the truthfulness of the Bible must be proven through man's usage of the tool of logic, then you deny the authority of Scripture. There is no way around this. As one of the articles I will link you to at the end of my reply explains, the disciplines of logical reasoning, scientific verification, and historical criticism end up becoming your authority, not the Bible, if you are telling the unbeliever that he should believe the Bible because it has received its stamp of approval from these disciplines. If you want to consistently argue for the claim that the Bible, God's very own special revelation to us, is the ultimate authority of truth, you must adopt a presuppositional approach to do so. It really is as simple as putting 1 and 2 together my friend. You cannot argue for an ultimate authority (and if you agree with the first chapter of the WCF you do not disagree that the Bible is the ultimate authority) by appealing to another authority without disqualifying your own argument.

Furthermore, as a Calvinist you would certainly agree with me that whatever takes place, anywhere or anytime, is brought about by God’s power. So when prophecy is fulfilled in the earth (as in the case of Alexander the great, or King Cyrus, or Christ himself) it is God acting to bring those prophecies to pass, and that action, that fulfillment of prophecy, is evidence that the Scripture is his word (we know this from verses like Deu 18:21-22, Isaiah 41:22-23; 44:7-8). But the event that comes to pass is obviously not Scripture. It confirms Scripture, but it is not itself Scripture. Thus, the fulfillment of prophecy is an extra-biblical witness (from God the Father) to the divine authorship of the Bible.

These are extra-biblical reasons to accept the Bible as true and divine. God gives them for that purpose and tells us, in the Bible, they are for that purpose. He expects us to conclude that the Bible is his word because logic compels us to agree with this evidence he provides. If you still insist that to prove the Bible is God’s word with extra-biblical evidence is unbiblical, then call the God of the Bible unbiblical, because he proves the truth of his word with extra-biblical evidence.

(29) With the exception of a couple of minor errors in your second paragraph, there’s nothing wrong with anything you’ve said here. Once again I don’t know what position you think you’re attacking here my friend but it isn’t presuppositionalism.

(30) As for the minor errors, though, you’re equating “proof” with “evidence,” when it is not necessarily the same. Extra-biblical evidences provide for us additional reasons to believe that the Bible it God’s Word, but it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest that they alone “prove” the authority of the Bible. In the case of prophecy, there is always the possibility of mere coincidence, and in the case of miracles, well, I’m not too sure how that’s suppose to offer proof to an atheist to be honest when the atheist is going to question whether the recorded accounts of those miracles are even accurate to begin with (and he could likewise try to interpret the presence of any miracles today as some kind of unknown natural phenomenon).

(31) Second, you were doing well until your last statement: “…he proves the truth of his word with extra-biblical evidence.” What you should have said is that He offers for us evidences that clearly attest to His authority. The way you worded it, it makes it sound like you’re saying that God Himself relies on the jury of man to weigh the case He presents in order for Him to be able to declare that His Word is the authority that it is. In other words, God’s claim of authority relies on man’s own authority for its credibility, since man is the one interpreting these evidences you see, and declaring them to be credible reason to believe what God says.

Now I would like to move on to your treatment of Romans 1:20. This is the bedrock-bottom of my philosophy of apologetics right here. First, I would like to clarify something I said in my last reply.

When I said in my last reply, “3) None of this would be true if they were interpreting such evidence WRONGLY (i.e. in a way that leads them to reject God’s attributes),” I can see why that wording sounded confusing to you. Paul is clear in the context that men DO reject God’s attributes in exchange for a lie, and that they suppress the truth. But I insist that that is NOT because of their INTERPRETATION of the EVIDENCE. …

(32) It was never suggested that it was “because of their interpretation of the evidence.” Rather, the exact opposite is what has been suggested: that natural man’s interpretation of the evidence is faulty because of their suppression of the truth that is in them (the sensus divinitatis).

… It is rather an act of their will against the evidence (the things that are made) AND their correct interpretation of the evidence. …

(33) This doesn’t even make sense. If men correctly interpreted the evidence, there would be no such thing as non-Christians. They would all see the truth and come to Christ. This is because an interpretation of the evidence is driven by underlying presuppositions. So what does that mean when the evidence is interpreted properly? It means that those underlying presuppositions must be biblical ones. In other words, one who interprets the evidence properly = one who holds to a biblical worldview.

… In other words, their interpretation is good; their response is not. …

(34) So you’re saying that everyone knows of God’s existence, not subconsciously, but consciously, but simply chooses anyway to deny Him. You’re saying that our friend on the forums here, theatheistguy, knows consciously that he is wrong, but is simply lying to his own teeth by calling himself an anti-theist. I don’t see how else to understand what you’re saying. There are several problems with that. One, it pretty much does away with any need for apologetics at all. There is no need in presenting any evidence or arguments at all if everyone is already consciously aware of God’s existence. You may respond by saying that men only become aware of God’s existence once the evidence is presented to them, but then you’ve got the next problem: You can’t get that from the text of Romans 1. Paul is talking about the natural state of man. He is saying that natural man knows God. You can’t just insert into that that natural man “properly interprets the evidence” of God. It doesn’t fit, and that’s eisegesis. Unless if all you mean by “properly interprets the evidence” is man’s natural knowledge of God – i.e. the sense of divinity – the law of God written on man’s heart. But if that is all you mean then you do not disagree with me.

… In the face of their correct interpretation, they still deny God. So you see, I agree that men reject God’s attributes and that they suppress the truth. I only disagree that they do so by incorrectly interpreting the evidence around them. They CORRECTLY interpret the evidence, and then they willfully reject what their interpretation says is true.

(35) In addition to what I’ve already said I just want to say that in all honesty this is probably the most bizarre explanation of Romans 1 (and apologetic methodology period) that I’ve ever heard. I really am having a lot of difficulty understanding what it is you’re trying to argue, and I just think you should know that it reads an awful lot like you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, looking for a way to prolong our disagreement. I simply do not believe that you honestly believe what you say you do. If you did I can’t imagine why you would see any value in apologetics at all. For what point would it serve? Obviously there would no point in trying to “correct” a non-Christian’s interpretation of the evidence around him by trying to “prove” God’s existence or the truth of Scripture if they already properly interpret that evidence!

I can also testify myself to the fact that your interpretation is false. I was not always a Christian. There was a time when I rejected God. And when I rejected God, I sincerely thought that I was correct in doing so. I didn’t face the evidence and simply lie about my knowledge of it, rejecting Him while secretly knowing all along that I was wrong. I really thought I had sufficient reason to at least doubt the existence of God. Now deep down in my heart, I had a suppressed sense of divinity, which I was not consciously aware of, but would have been (and would later be) had my heart been humbled enough to examine myself and my espoused worldview. But there was no proper interpretation of any evidence.

Such a fact is proven by the phrase, “being understood by the things that are made.” Look at those two words, “being-understood.” The Greek word there means, “to comprehend, to heed, to perceive.” Don’t you see what this is saying? By the things made, God is UNDERSTOOD by the unregenerate! …

(36) I don’t think it is I who is failing to see what the text is saying my friend. You are reading your ideas into it. Neither of us is denying that the unregenerate understand the attributes of God and hence know of His existence. Our disagreement is in regards to what it means to say that God is understood. You seem to want to say that men consciously reject what they properly interpret throughout the world around them. The text does not say this. You’re trying to turn the text all around and insert an idea into it that simply is not there. You said, just earlier, that men “reject God’s attributes and suppress the truth … BY correct[ly] interpreting the evidence, and then … willfully reject[ing] what their interpretation says is true.” Where in this passage do you see anything about interpreting evidence? The Bible I’m reading simply says that the truth is clearly seen. No interpretation involved. Whenever evidence is in need of being interpreted just get two people with different presuppositions and you’ll end up with two different interpretations. There’s nothing “clearly seen” when interpretation of something is necessary. Your idea simply does not fit here. Paul is talking about a natural knowledge of God that has been placed on every man’s heart, but has been suppressed into the subconscious by sin. He is not talking about a conscious knowledge that is acquired through interpretation of evidences.

… By the things made, God is COMPREHENDED, and PERCEIVED by the unregenerate. That is the crucial point. …

(37) Actually it isn’t because the topic of the passage is the sinfulness of man. Again, the point that Paul is making is that the natural knowledge of God (the sensus divinitatis) is suppressed by the unrighteousness of man.

… They do not interpret the evidence wrong, because by that very evidence they know God! If they interpreted the evidence wrongly it would never yield such understanding in their minds. They would never come to a knowledge of God in the first place. What then would they be suppressing? That’s why they are without excuse—not because the evidence is merely made AVAILABLE to them, but because the evidence is understood by them!

(38) Nomos I’m sorry but you’re simply misunderstanding the passage. I’ve never seen anyone try to argue what you are arguing here. The passage says nothing about interpreting evidence, and that idea simply does not fit into what Paul is saying. He is talking about the natural knowledge of God – something that God has put in every man, not something that we come to by our own reasoning. Again, if all you mean by an understanding of the evidence is the natural perception of God’s creation (as opposed to a process of sitting down and reasoning one’s way toward a conclusion about that creation), then you are not disagreeing with me, but are simply playing with words in order to make it otherwise appear that we are in disagreement. But that natural knowledge of God is no longer a conscious knowledge, but instead has been suppressed by sin (i.e. it’s been pushed down; it’s not conscious, but subconscious), and you would have to be very naïve to disagree with this … to think that the atheists running around out there actually have a conscious awareness of God’s existence but simply refuse to be honest about it. The knowledge is subconscious; it has been suppressed by sin. It takes a miraculous work of God through regeneration for them to see what they know deep down to be true.

What a testimony to the total depravity of man! He interprets the evidence rightly and STILL rejects it. Contrary to what he knows AND contrary to what he reasons! Contrary to what everything around him tells him is true, and contrary to even what he AGREES is true. His heart still will not submit to what his mind agrees with.

That is far more wicked than a man who just doesn’t interpret the evidence correctly (even if because of sinful presuppositions). Such a man would be unaware of how much good evidence he is rejecting. He cannot knowingly reject what he doesn’t understand. Since he understands less, he is rejecting less, and therefore his resulting guilt is less. In fact, for this reason I believe I am affirming man’s depravity better than you.

(39) Unfortunately I’ve already shown how your position negates the depravity of man. Review Comments 23 and 38. But regardless, your point here holds very little weight in your argument. You sound to me like the Arminian who argues for free will on the basis of the purely philosophical assumption that responsibility for sin must necessarily imply the ability in man to choose not to sin. The argument does not hold up, and is an irrelevant point anyway simply because of the fact that it is contrary to the plain teaching of Scripture.

Because I am running out of space, I will respond to the rest of your post in a second reply.

[T. Scott Morgan]

(Note that this is part 2 of my reply; be sure to see the previous post).

Now, let’s look at your treatment of the Cosmological Argument (which, by the way, I thought was very well stated, argued, and written; as a matter of fact, I think I might like to post a full response to it in appreciation of it): …

(40) I appreciate that remark, and look forward to your response.

… First of all, I would like to point out that it cannot possibly be true that the Cosmological Argument is unsound, because if it were men would have an excuse for not accepting its conclusion, and according to Romans 1:20 they do not. Remember, that verse clearly states that it is “BY THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE” that men understand God. So I must conclude that if Scripture is true the Cosmological Argument is sound, and if the Cosmological Argument is not sound, Scripture is not sound. It is no less than the inerrancy of the Bible that is at stake.

(41) I don’t follow you here at all. How would the unsoundness of the Cosmological Argument give men an excuse not to accept its conclusion? The conclusion is not exclusive to that one argument. Just because the particular argument may fail does not mean that the conclusion itself is false, nor does it mean that there are not other arguments that prove the conclusion. Men are not left with excuse simply because one attempt at proving the conclusion fails. You can come up with all sorts of arguments for a particular position that happen to be invalid or unsound arguments, even if the position itself is still true. It also sounds to me like you are resting the authority of Scripture on the authority and fate of human philosophy, which again is very dangerous ground to be treading upon. Your statement reads like you’re meaning to say that the truthfulness of Romans 1:20 depends on whether the Cosmological Argument, a man-made argument, works. But I sure hope that you would agree, if asked, that God does not need human philosophy in order to be able to proclaim His truth, even if I do think that this is precisely the position that your reasoning must lead you towards.

Your central criticism is that there is no a-priori or a-posteriori reasons for accepting the law of cause-and-effect without somehow assuming the existence of God.

(42) Just to clarify, that would be the issue that I spent the most time on yes, because I realize it would be perceived as a radical claim. But really my main criticism of the Cosmological Argument is simply this: That the argument is incompatible with the notion that God’s existence is necessary. If God necessarily exists, then the Cosmological Argument is unsound, for premise 1 which assumes a law-like regularity would further assume God, and thus beg the question. But if the Cosmological Argument is sound, then God does not necessarily exist, for premise 1 which assumes a law-like regularity would not further assume God, thus implying that law-like regularities and objective standards can be accounted for apart from God’s existence. In other words, the Cosmological Argument can only be consistently used by one who holds that the existence of God is a mere possibility, and not a necessity. So, assuming that someone were to come along and say that God’s existence is a mere possibility (in which the best they can possibly argue is a probability case for God, since the possibility of God’s existence leaves open the possibility of God’s non-existence), and not a necessity, I also chose to explain why I find the argument to be unsound even in that case, which is why I turn to the question of whether a belief in causality can be rationally justified independently of God.

My reply is that, while I agree with you that (in a way suitable for our purposes) there are no STRICTLY a-posteriori reasons, I can easily supply you with 2 a-priori reasons (that do not directly appeal to God) …

(43) Well whether it’s direct or indirect they can’t appeal to God at all or the argument fails.

… for why we cannot logically deny this law.

But before I do that, I want to eliminate an anticipated objection that will come from you. I will begin by asking you a question. You used a “3-sided-square” as an example of something that we can know is impossible a-priori. Would you then agree with me that it is acceptable to say that an atheist can a-priori dismiss the possibility of a 3-sided-square without appealing the existence of God?

(44) No, because I hold that God’s existence is the precondition to all knowledge whatsoever. There is no thinking going on in any person’s head that does not, on a subconscious level, appeal to the existence of God.

I think you should say yes, since the only reason you cited this example in the first place was to contrast it with the law of cause-and-effect. You were basically saying, “If we are going to validate causality a-priori without already assuming the existence of God, we have to find support for it SIMILAR to the support for validating that “3-sided-squares are impossible.” There was no other reason for you to even mention this example.

But I suspect you would want to say no. You would want to say that people have to assume logic before they can dismiss 3-sided-squares, and they need God to do that. But if that is your appeal, then what were you contrasting “3-sided-squares” with the first premise of the Kalam for in the first place? What difference is there between the two?

(45) I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying or asking here. I wasn’t intending to contrast anything; I was simply giving an example of what it means to say that something is knowable a priori, in case someone less familiar with such philosophical terms were to run across the article. What difference is there between “3-sided-squares” and “whatever begins to exist has a cause”? Well that’s basically what I’m asking. Or, more precisely, on what basis do we assume (if that basis is not God’s existence) that the two are similar? In other words, what is the a priori (or a posteriori) justification for the claim that “whatever begins to exist has a cause”?

The fact is, there is no point in making any difference between these two things. “3-sided-square” is not a concept about logic, it is a concept about squares. Likewise, the CA is not an argument for logic, it is an argument for God. …

(46) Again, I’m not sure what is causing you to believe that I’m trying to make some sort of contrast, or what anything else you’ve mentioned here has to do with anything. I was simply explaining what the term “a priori” means, nothing more.

It is meant to show that the existence of God is logical, not that logic is logical. There is no point in demanding that it go further and prove the validity of logic itself, since that is not even its intention. No one demands that the professor prove the validity of logic itself when he demonstrates that 3-sided-squares do not exist. The only intention of the CA is to show us THAT IF WE WILL BE LOGICAL we must accept God’s existence. It does not have to do more than that.

(47) Is this a cop out? If you are suggesting that a question such as, “What is our justification for our belief in causality?” is an irrelevant one, you’ve got a very rude awakening ahead of you, and I recommend studying epistemology. Especially Hume’s epistemology, as much of it is centered on asking that very question.

If we will be logical, we must reject the Cosmological Argument, because it is question-begging. Either question-begging, or it has an unjustifiable premise. One or the other. I’m not sure what you are trying to get at by saying that the Cosmological Argument does not intend to “prove that logic is logical.” It does not matter what the Cosmological Argument’s intention is. This same criticism of an unjustifiable premise could be leveled against virtually any argument, for any thing, that assumes a concept of causality without first assuming God. The point is that the Cosmological Argument assumes something that cannot be accounted for if God does not exist. And that in turn means that in order to consistently make use of that principle assumed, the argument must presuppose God. Well, the problem with that is that the argument is arguing toward God (and not in a transcendental fashion).

Now, since almost all people, Christian or not, claim that they want to be logical, that is a powerful point. But, if someone wishes to be obstinate and argue whether logic itself is valid, we can simply point out that they are using logic to do that, since they have no other choice. We do not need to appeal to its divine source to demonstrate this. Logic cannot be questioned without being assumed. Every thought is governed by it, even the thought that it might not be valid. Therefore, it cannot be thought to be invalid regardless of whether one acknowledges its foundation in the nature of God.

(48) No one is questioning whether “logic is valid” so I’m not sure where you’ve picked this idea up from and why you’re going on about it. One thing I might suggest to you though is to be careful not to clump all the laws of logic together here, because I am talking about a law of causality specifically, not simply “logic.” I am not questioning the law of non-contradiction, the law of identity, or the law of excluded middle. The question we need to be concerned with here is what our justification is for believing in a law of causality specifically (which is quite different from the three main logical laws). That’s not a question of its validity (not necessarily, at least), but rather simply a question of why it is we trust that it is valid.

Additionally, perhaps the reason no one will ask the professor to “prove the validity of logic” (I’m not entirely sure what you intend to mean by that) is because everyone already agrees that logical laws exist and are reliable. But the fact that everyone already believes this does not necessarily mean that they have justification for their belief in some of those laws. The problem of induction is a clear example illustrating that fact. No one thinks to question in their day to day reasoning whether they have any rational justification for assuming the reliability of an inductive principle (or a law of causality). But that does not change the fact that without God they have no such justification, and hence are being inconsistent every time they make use of such principles.

Therefore, I propose that IF I can find an a-priori proof that establishes the law of cause-and-effect that is logical and comparable to a-priori proofs against “3-sided-squares” and such—then that should be enough to end your criticism of the CA.

(49) Not entirely. It would only be enough to justify the first premise and thus make the argument sound on the condition that the one presenting the argument maintain that this God he is arguing toward only possibly exists, but does not necessarily exist. But I would still contend that that is not the God of the Bible. Should one acknowledge that God necessarily exists, he would still end up begging the question even if premise 1 can be justified, because this would simply mean that the a priori proof for causality is itself accounted for by (and thus assumes) God.

In fact I can provide you with two:

1) An effect without a cause ...

(50) You’re already making a mistake. To call it “an effect without a cause” is to beg the question, because the very question is whether it is necessarily true that any particular event in question is an “effect.” We must simply call it an “event.” And the question is, Is the event the “effect” of a “cause”?

… is an analytically false concept. That is, it is one that is false by definition, and therefore it cannot logically be true or even thought. This is because the word “effect” is defined as “anything that is caused to occur;” just like the word “cause” is defined as “anything that produces an effect.” These definitions are not arbitrary. There is no other way to define these words. …

(51) See Comment 50.

… Use any synonyms you like. Substitute “event” or “happening” for the word “effect.” You will eventually get the same thing. …

(52) Uh, what? No you won’t either. These are not synonyms. Not close enough at least for our concerns.

e•vent
1. something that happens or is regarded as happening; an occurrence, esp. one of some importance.
2. the outcome, issue, or result of anything: The venture had no successful event.
3. something that occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time.
4. Physics . in relativity, an occurrence that is sharply localized at a single point in space and instant of time. Compare world point.
5. Sports . any of the contests in a program made up of one sport or of a number of sports: The broad jump event followed the pole vault.

Synonyms: happening, affair, case, circumstance.

Only one of the 5 definitions here (number 2) could be considered synonymous to the meaning of “effect.”

hap•pen•ing
1.something that happens; occurrence; event.
2.an unconventional dramatic or artistically orchestrated performance, often a series of discontinuous events involving audience participation.
3.any event considered worthwhile, unusual, or interesting.

Synonyms: incident, episode, instance, affair, case.

Again, “effect” is not synonymous. In fact, they don’t even share some of the same synonymous:

ef•fect
1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence: Exposure to the sun had the effect of toughening his skin.
2. power to produce results; efficacy; force; validity; influence: His protest had no effect.
3. the state of being effective or operative; operation or execution; accomplishment or fulfillment: to bring a plan into effect.
4. a mental or emotional impression produced, as by a painting or a speech.
5. meaning or sense; purpose or intention: She disapproved of the proposal and wrote to that effect.
6. the making of a desired impression: We had the feeling that the big, expensive car was only for effect.
7. an illusory phenomenon: a three-dimensional effect.
8. a real phenomenon (usually named for its discoverer): the doppler effect.
9. special effects.

Synonyms: outcome, issue. Effect, consequence(s), result. (When used as a verb: achieve, realize, fulfill, perform, consummate.)

Notice the conditional statement in the definition of “effect,” yet the lack of one in the definitions of “event” and “happening” (with the exception of #2 under “event”). Nothing about the words “event” or “happening” necessarily imply causality. If they did, the very phrase “spontaneous event” wouldn’t even make linguistic sense. It would be an oxymoron. Yet it is not.

… An “effect” by definition is whatever is caused to occur by something else. Therefore, an “uncaused-effect” is a meaningless, self-falsifying phrase. You might as well claim to be able to think of “married-bachelors” or “3-sided-squares,” because “uncaused-effects” are just as internally incoherent.

(53) Again, see Comment 50.

2) Nothing does not exist. It is defined as that which does not exist. It is non-being, and “non-being… being” is nonsense. “Non-being” cannot even be thought “to-be” in any possible circumstance. It logically cannot be. But if “non-being” cannot “be” …then it cannot “be” –a- cause. That which is not, is not a cause. And, as pointed out above, that which is not a cause does not (by definition) produce any effects, since that’s what a cause is. If it produced an effect, it would be a cause, so obviously that which cannot be a cause does not produce any effects in any possible world. Think about it: Could a “married-bachelor” ever produce an effect in any possible world? Of course it couldn’t. Why not? Because that which cannot “be” cannot be a cause. Could a thing be the efficient cause of itself beginning to exist in any possible world? No. Why not? Because that which cannot “be” (such as a thing before it exists) cannot be it’s own cause. “Nothing” cannot be. Therefore, “nothing” cannot be a cause. To say otherwise is to violate the law of non-contradiction. …

(54) Again, I am afraid you are begging the question here too. To say that “’nothing’ cannot be a cause” is to already speak in terms of causality. But the very question is regarding whether we should even be doing this. On what basis do we assume at all that there must be a cause? (Again, this question is directed toward the one who does not accept that the very existence of God provides that basis.) Why could it not be possible that something could spontaneously begin to exist? Where is the contradiction in “uncaused-event” or “uncaused-object”? I am not sure you can say that an object arbitrarily appearing in mid-air is inconceivable. It doesn’t take much imagination to conceive of an apple arbitrarily appearing on my desk where there wasn’t one a minute ago. The reason that something like “married-bachelor” is inconceivable is because, as you have pointed out, it is a contradiction in terms. It is impossible to even conceive of such a thing because the very phrase is nonsense. But I see no contradiction here, because we are not talking about “uncaused-effects,” but rather “uncaused-events,” seeing as whether the event even is necessarily an effect of something is the very question.

… If you try to deny this by continuing to insist that you are able to think of possible worlds where “uncaused-effects” exist, I will simply go back to the above two points and insist that, logically, you cannot think of what you say you can. Anyone can claim to be able to think of logically impossible worlds, but it’s never anything more than a claim. You know that.

(55) I’m going to have to feed your own advice back to you here. You can claim all day that causality is knowable a priori without assuming God, but without providing an a priori justification it’s nothing more than a claim. You have offered no proof here. Your assertion that I am claiming to think of logically impossible worlds leads me to believe that you fail to recognize the seriousness of the question being asked. The question of whether a concept of causality is knowable a priori was the center of much of the controversy between Hume and Kant. Hume expressed skepticism toward the assertion you have made – that causality is knowable a priori – and Kant later came along admitting that the very possibility of metaphysics depends on whether Hume’s criticism can be refuted:

That metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so vacillating a state of uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the fact that this great problem, and perhaps even the difference between analytical and synthetical judgements, did not sooner suggest itself to philosophers. Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the impossibility of synthetical knowledge a priori, depends the existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics. Among philosophers, David Hume came the nearest of all to this problem...

– Immanuel Kant, Introduction in Critique of Pure Reason (1787 edition)

The “problem” to which Kant refers to here is what he termed “the general problem of pure reason,” which is none other than David Hume’s skepticism about causation. And after Hume published his famous Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, even Kant himself started to express some doubts about whether causal relations can be known by reason alone. It is obviously a huge philosophical issue; one that we cannot simply assert an answer to, if we are really going to take a philosophical approach here. So unless if you are prepared to say that the grounds of your a priori knowledge of causality is accounted for by the existence of a perfect, eternal, unchanging God who defines and sustains reality, which would be an admission that recants your criticism of my argument, then you must otherwise show us proof that such a concept as causality is knowable a priori even if no God exists.

You may find a concept of causality to be so obvious that you might think it silly to even seriously question it. But I suggest to you that the only reason you consider it to be so obvious is because in your heart of hearts you have a natural knowledge of God, a sense of divinity. (Refer back to Comment 5). You see the same thing with the problem of induction, which is perhaps an even more devastating problem introduced by Hume. Everyone considers the reliability of an inductive principle in reasoning to be obvious. That is why we all engage in scientific thought and common sense (of which a principle of induction is the grounds for both). Yet despite this consideration, there exists no justification (other than God) for the reliability of such a principle either through experience or through pure reason, thus indicating that from a secular standpoint there are absolutely no rational grounds for doing science or even engaging in common sense reasoning. If you think this is silly, you are simply mistaken. Philosophers have wrestled with this problem for centuries, and more often than not fail to recognize the importance of it only because they are too unwilling to accept the consequences should they choose to be rational. But the fact of the matter is if one is not a Christian, they have absolutely no rational basis for doing science or using common sense. To assume an inductive principle in reasoning while denying the existence of the Christian God is to be inconsistent. And the problem of causality may suffer a similar fate.

Such things find their rationality only in the presupposition of God’s existence, and again, I would suggest that our natural, innate knowledge of His existence (which makes that presupposition for rational thought an unconscious belief buried in the heart of man) is what gives rise to this recognition of the obviousness of such principles and concepts. How else can we make sense of the fact that we are unable to provide a rational justification (from a secular point of view) for what seems to be so obviously true? If non-Christians would actually be consistent with the worldviews they espouse, they would have no grounds at all for using reason to make sense of the world. They have no argument against this.

So my point is that if you cannot provide a satisfactory justification (without appealing to God) for our belief that causal relations are knowable purely through reason, but insist anyway that such a belief is reliable, then you would simply be ignoring what has been one of the greatest problems to have plagued epistemologists for centuries. And that’s simply not going to fly. Hume’s skepticism regarding causation has never been fully answered. And so if you insist on a method of argumentation that refuses to acknowledge a presupposition in God’s existence (the only way to sufficiently escape Hume’s skepticism), you must first deal with this problem. Needless to say, should you manage to save the Cosmological Argument from this portion of my criticism, you would have made an absolutely remarkable contribution to humanistic philosophy … something that not even Kant was capable of doing.

Now that I have defended the law of cause-and-effect, and the CA, I would like to state why I am still a Classicist by pointing out the serious problems that I see persisting with Presuppositionalism:

a) The best it can do is end in an intellectual “tie” between two equally “rational” positions: Christian-Theism, and utter meaninglessness:

The central premise of presuppositionalism is that Biblical Christianity cannot be rationally established. …

(56) I am trying to be patient with you Nomos, but you really are testing it now . You cannot be serious. My friend, such a claim is about as outrageous as asserting that the central premise of Christianity is that the idea of supernaturalism is utterly absurd. I specifically remember telling you in a previous post what the central premise of presuppositionalism is, by using the exact words, “The central claim of Presuppositionalism is…”, and no, what you assert here is not what I said. For your benefit my friend, the central claim of presuppositionalism is that antitheism presupposes theism. And what is the proper implication to be drawn from that statement? That Christianity is rationally provable, by virtue of the fact that proof itself is only made possible because the Christian God exists. A complete contradiction of what you have asserted. No presuppositionalist has ever claimed or assumed that Biblical Christianity cannot be rationally established! Not by any means! I can see how certain quotes by Van Til could be misconstrued to read in that way (he was not always very good at articulating his position), but if you take the time to read his books and consider his thought there is simply no way that you could come away with such a belief. This is why I am asking you to do some reading before I will be willing to put more time into this discussion.

… It can only be presupposed, apart from any reasons whatsoever, and unless it is thus presupposed no one can rationally establish it.

(57) But to say that something must be presupposed in order to rationally establish its truth is not at all the same as saying that it cannot be rationally established! Transcendentalism. Distinct from deductive and inductive methods of argumentation in that both of these produce direct syllogisms, while transcendental argumentation works in an indirect fashion. We argue from the impossibility of the contrary. We acknowledge a presupposition in God and then demonstrate that worldviews which don’t acknowledge a presupposition in God (that is they refuse to espouse such, although in their heart of hearts all men unavoidably hold to such a presupposition) are unable to account for such things as the laws of logic, and principles of reasoning such as a principle of induction, thus indicating that those who hold to such worldviews are being inconsistent every time they assume such principles and laws while at the same time denying the Christian God. We then proceed to show that our own worldview presupposition is able to account for such things, which in turn demonstrates that only Christian theism makes any sense at all of rationality, proof, knowledge, etc., and this in turn demonstrates both that Christianity provides the only fully accurate outlook on reality, and that everyone with a thinking brain subconsciously appeals to God’s existence (that precondition to knowledge, proof, etc.) but is simply unwilling to recognize it for what it is (Romans 1:18ff).

Now, were this true it would necessarily mean that there is no reason to accept our position. The atheist will not let you deny that. To offer any reason (including transcendental arguments) would contradict the central premise of presuppositionalism. What shall we say then? Shall we point out that there also is no reason for the non-believer to accept his position (that his worldview is also circular)? Then you have two positions, “Christian-Theism” and “NON-Christian-Theism” (as it were), and there are no reasons for accepting either position. Therefore, the acceptance of either one is equally rational. You cannot use reason to accept or deny either one. The only way to avoid that conclusion is to deny the central premise of presuppositionalism and begin to offer some reason, some linear logic, for why one view is false and the other is true. Even if we argue transcendentally, that is still a linear argument (“reduction ad absurdum”) the conclusion of which is not in the premise either explicitly or implicitly. You can’t have it both ways. It seems to me then that the only way to avoid this intellectual “tie” is to abandon presuppositionalism.

If we reuse to do this we must concede to the atheist that there are no reasons we can give for why he should accept our position. He is intellectually justified then if he chooses to not accept it, and no one (not even God) could disagree. If he does not WANT to accept it, and there are no reasons FOR him to accept it, then he should NOT accept it. That is self-evident. This is true even if his world-view ends in absurdity and falsehood. Men have been willing to go that far in the past to avoid presupposing the God of Scripture. They will go there again, and they SHOULD, unless there is some reason for them not to. What difference does it make to them if OUR presupposition says that THEIRS is false, illogical, and absurd, if their presupposition of choice tells them that there is no difference between truth and falsehood and that all is meaningless?

(58) See Comments 56 and 57; as soon as you asserted what you believe to be the central premise of presuppositionalism you lost any credibility you may have had with this criticism.

(59) Might I also suggest to you though that you spend a little more time asking questions and a little less time making assertions and running with them. Again, your criticisms are comparable to that of the Arminian who thinks he has sufficient reason to reject Reformed theology, but in reality doesn’t have the slightest idea what Calvinists actually believe. Now you tell me. Does such a person have the intellectual right at that point to be criticizing and making truth claims about a position he opposes? Or should he, if he is honest, not be more concerned with being a student of that position before choosing to level his criticisms? You say you are truly trying to understand my position, and I do believe you, but you make more assertions than you ask questions, and yet you give entire explanations and criticisms based on ideas that quite honestly I don’t even know how you could come up with.

b) It is riddled with glaring inconsistencies, such as:

1. In one breath, it says that unless a person first presupposes the truth of Christian-Theism they cannot establish the truth of Christian-Theism, but in the next breath, it says that the truth of Christian Theism is not a premise in their arguments (which attempt to establish Christian-Theism).

(60) This may be my fault, as my explanation on this before may have been confusing or inaccurate. I was simply trying to get you to avoid using the term “premise” because that isn’t how I would state it. But no, presuppositionalism does not deny that the truth of Christian Theism is the starting premise of transcendental argumentation. Does this make our position circular? Yes. But anyone who considers that to be problematic doesn’t know the first thing about how their own worldview is structured. Every worldview is necessarily circular. No one can deny that. If I ask you to justify a belief you hold to, you will give me your reasons. If I ask you to justify why you believe those reasons to be true, you will give me other reasons. But as we continue this process, eventually you must terminate somewhere and say that there are no further reasons to justify the reason in question, that final reason is “just so.” Every worldview espouses a presupposition that is considered to be self-attestingly true. A presupposition that cannot be proven by anything but itself (if even that). So the question then becomes, not, “Is the Christian worldview then circular?”, for every honest person must admit that their worldview is; but rather the question becomes, “Is the Christian worldview capable of justifying its circularity?” And the answer is yes. That is what transcendental argumentation is really all about; why we say it is an indirect means of argument, and why we call it argumentation from the impossibility of the contrary. We demonstrate both that Christianity’s circularity is indirectly justifiable, while at the same time demonstrating that contrary worldviews cannot be justified in similar fashion, thus necessitating Christianity as the only truly consistent option.

2. In one breath, it says that Christian-Theism (which teaches that all views contrary to itself are impossible) must be presupposed without being logically demonstrated, but in the next breath, it attempts to logically demonstrate the impossibility of all contrary views.

(61) I believe I’ve already explained to you why there is no inconsistency involved here. We do not say that Christianity must be presupposed without being logically demonstrated. We say that Christianity must be presupposed in order to be logically demonstrated. And I have briefly explained transcendental argumentation several times now.

3. In one breath, it says that the reason why men cannot reason correctly is that all men sinfully presuppose their own autonomy RATHER THAN the existence of God, but in the next breath, it says that all men actually presuppose the existence of God.

(62) Now I’m really wondering how carefully you are reading my posts. This too I know I have already been over in previous posts (and again in the first part of this reply). As I explained before, no one actually presupposes their own autonomy. This is an espoused presupposition. They claim that something other than God is their ultimate starting point, but in reality it is not. All men actually subconsciously presuppose the existence of God (i.e. they posses the sensus divinitatis) because they would not otherwise even begin to think rationally in the first place. But because this knowledge of God is suppressed by sin, that same sinful desire that inclines natural man to rebel against his Creator and be the god of his own world, men claim to hold to different ultimate presuppositions, and they try to form various worldviews in light of those presuppositions. But all men presuppose God in their heart of hearts. The very goal of presuppositionalism is to reveal to the unbeliever that his anti-theism (or non-Christianity) already presupposes theism (Christianity). So the fact that you haven’t picked up yet on what we are saying here is again plain evidence that you do not know what presuppositionalism even is (which really makes me wonder why you are already criticizing it), for you apparently fail to realize its ultimate goals.

c) Therefore, for these two reasons (a and b) …

(63) If these are really your only reasons for objecting to presuppositionalism then I submit to you that you have no grounds whatsoever to be opposing what you oppose. Your opposition has been based purely on misunderstanding, and nothing else at all.

… presuppositionalism does not eliminate every excuse the non-believer may have, and it leaves intellectual room for his unbelief (contra-Rom 1:20).

(64) I’m not sure why you keep stating this. Presuppositionalism never claims to eliminate any excuse the non-believer may try to give for his unbelief. Why are you trying to insert the discipline of apologetics into Romans 1? Paul is not saying that men are without excuse because of the fact that we have apologists running around producing evidences and arguments. The reason men are without excuse is none other than the fact that men are born with a natural knowledge of God—the sense of divinity. All of fallen man is in view in Romans 1 and there is nothing at all in the text itself that gives any implication to the belief that men become aware of God after reviewing and thinking about creation, as opposed to simply being created with a knowledge of God that has now been suppressed to the subconscious. The knowledge of God is not something that presuppositionalism or any other apologetic methodology provides! Apologetics is not the reason why men have no excuse! Rather, men are already without excuse, because the knowledge of God has been written on every man’s heart by God Himself.

I’m sure you have something to say in reply. I am eager to hear it (whenever you have the time). My only request is that you read this post carefully, and really try to understand what I have said. …

(65) I do hope that I have honored that request. I surely have tried to, and have taken my time to respond. But I wish you would honor your own request as well, because I’m not sure you’re trying very hard to do so. I understand that presuppositionalism is a very difficult method to grasp at first, so I am trying to be as patient as I can. But again, I can’t help but notice that you seem to have ignored some of the most critical points I have repeatedly raised (the most critical of which I will discuss again below), have made various assertions about presuppositionalism that are quite honestly very bizarre, and yet you have asked few questions about those assertions in order to confirm whether they are accurate. I admit I can’t remember everything that each of us have said over the course of our discussion, so again maybe you did ask more questions before and maybe my insufficient explanations are partially to blame for your confusion. But I also know that several of the claims you made in your last reply I have already specifically addressed previously, and have heard no objection to, other than the mere re-assertion of the claim.

So, my request to you would be to please try to better understand my position before choosing to level an attack against it. It’s just the honest thing to do when trying to learn something. I’m serious when I say that I don’t think you have yet, in any one of your claims really, to get past the stage of attacking mere straw men, and start to attack what is actually presuppositionalism. And again, I do hope I have honored your posts in the same manner that I ask you to honor mine, although I do see myself as being on the defensive here.

… I believe that what I have written here is a response to the points you’ve already written, so the only need you would have of repeating your points is if you wish to clarify them in light of what I have said.

(66) I have to be honest friend, I am not sure how you can state this honestly. Did you not see the answers I had already provided in my last reply to the criticisms you numbered above (especially 2 and 3)? Maybe you didn’t find my answers sufficient, but that does not mean you can simply ignore them and continue making your claims without dealing with my defense. And not once in your entire reply did you even make mention of what was probably my most serious and most often repeated criticism of your position in my last reply to you. So you see it is apparently necessary that I repeat myself. Because even after trying to drill it, there is still no response given. The criticism I refer to is the following:

Throughout the course of our discussion, you have made the following two claims:

- That logic is a revelation of God
- That our ultimate presupposition is logic

It is my contention that this is a glaring contradiction; one that I think actually undermines your entire methodology (so this should have been the greatest concern of your post). I still suggest that you conceded your argument long ago, as soon as you mentioned that logic is a revelation of God. Epistemologically speaking, logic can only be a revelation of God if God is indeed the foundation of that logic. And epistemologically speaking, to say that God is the foundation of logic is to say that logic presupposes God. Yet how can logic presuppose God if logic is our ultimate presupposition? Remember, this has nothing to do with recognition of ourselves as thinking agents. We are not dealing with a psychological question. It is an epistemological question.

Logic cannot exist independently of God as its foundation if it is indeed a part of His revelation. You admitted earlier that God is the foundation of logical thinking. But as soon as you admitted that you conceded your entire position. You just haven’t realized it yet because you aren’t thinking about the term “presupposition” properly. There is no reconciling these two claims. Is logic a revelation of God? Or does God presuppose logic? You cannot have it both ways. You are confusing yourself because you are taking a psychological approach to the question and are thinking about it more in terms of, “Well you must think logically before you can think about God, and you can’t think about God without first thinking logically.” I don’t disagree with that, but that is not the issue here.

When we speak of presuppositions, we are talking about those most basic beliefs which function as the necessary preconditions for higher beliefs. If logic is a revelation of God, then logic presupposes God (because logic cannot be revealed by that which is not in some sense “prior” to it!). Logical thought makes use of a subconscious assumption that logic exists and is possible. But that logic exists and is possible makes use of the further subconscious assumption that its foundation, God, also exists. I don’t know how to make it any clearer. If God is foundational to logic, that is but another way of saying that God is presuppositional to logic. You can’t hold a belief in something without necessarily presupposing the foundation (or what accounts for) the reality of that which you believe in. A belief in something always presupposes that something’s foundation. Otherwise you wouldn’t hold to a belief in it, because you wouldn’t have the building blocks in the first place that give rise to that belief. You can’t separate a presupposition in logic from a presupposition in God if you are going to admit that God is logic or that logic is revealed by Him.

You say that logic is a revelation of God, but I submit to you that the exact opposite is what you have been arguing all along. Think about it. Has it not been your position all along that the truth about God is revealed through logical thought? That is to say that God is a revelation of logic (that God presupposes logic), not that logic is a revelation of God. Logic is not a revelation of God if logic is first necessary in order for the truth about God to be revealed!

Now, I would be willing to meet you half-way here and say that it is both true, in a sense, that logic presupposes God and that God presupposes logic. This is because, as you say, God is logic, and also as you say, you can’t think about God (though that isn’t our concern here when we speak of presupposing Him) without utilizing logic. These are two sentiments I don’t disagree with. But you still cannot escape the fact that so long as you acknowledge that logic is a revelation of God, that every time one utilizes logic they are making use of a tool which must further assume its foundation, i.e. God. How can something be assumed without the ground upon which it is standing also being assumed?

So you must retract your statement that logic is a revelation of God in order to be consistent and continue making your argument here. Yet, you’ve already admitted that retracting this statement would be unscriptural. So you’re left with quite a dilemma here, and these are the only options I see available to you at this point:

1) Concede your position
2) Retract your claim that logic is revealed by God, thus denying Scripture
3) Or continue to miss the point of the whole issue here by insisting on maintaining your argument regarding one’s “order of recognition” of things.

No matter what you choose, you will not be in a position where you can defend the assertion that evidentialism/classical apologetics is a more biblically consistent and God-honoring method of defending the faith.

So again, this is my recommendation to you at this point (and my requirement in order for my contribution to this discussion to continue any further). Read these articles, listen to the lectures, and if it is not too hard on the piggy bank, I recommend picking up these books as well. Give them some time and some serious thought. If you still find what they teach to be inadequate, I would love to hear and further interact with your thoughts on that material (you’re welcome to post your thoughts on any of it here). But you need to deal with the stuff that’s going to help you understand the claims of presuppositionalism, and I think you need to deal with it before you choose to criticize the position any further.

So here is my recommended reading/listening for you. Obviously I don’t expect you to get through all of it before hearing from you again, but I hope you’ll spend time in some of it:

Articles:
Sufficiency of Scripture in Apologetics – Michael Kruger
Defending the Faith: An Introduction to the Presuppositional Method – Massimo Lorenzini
Does Presuppositional Apologetics Use Circular Reasoning? – Massimo Lorenzini
Plenty of great articles here and here


Lectures & Videos:
How do I know God exists? – D. A. Carson
Apologetics: Defined by the Bible – James White
If you have iTunes, look for the 13 lectures on apologetics here
Video lectures by Greg Bahnsen


Books:
Pushing the Antithesis – Greg Bahnsen (you can read the Intro and first chapter online here)
Always Ready – Greg Bahnsen
Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended – Greg Bahnsen
Van Til’s Apologetic – Greg Bahnsen
Introduction to Systematic Theology - Cornelius Van Til
Christian Apologetics - Cornelius Van Til
Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics - K. Scott Oliphint & Lane G. Tipton