Basics of Presuppositionalism. What is a Presupposition, exactly?

One of the most voiced criticisms of presuppositionalism is that it "assumes what it is trying to prove." In other words, some say, it is a "circular" argument. These seem to stem from the mistaken belief that a presupposition is something that is merely assumed, either a non-proveable assumption, or something akin to an axiom. 

Let's take each of these starting with the "assumption" claim.  

First, presuppositions are not taken to be synonymous with "merely assumed."  As used in presuppositionalism -- as Greg Bahnsen emphasized -- presuppositions are the basic, non-negotiable claims of a worldview. Also, a presupposition is a necessary belief to account for a "state of affairs."  Neither of these carry the notion of "unprovable assumptions."   In fact the characterization as a "necessary belief" carries with it the idea that such a presupposition is necessary because of the impossibility of the contrary, i.e. to deny it proves it by leading to self-contradiction.  That is the essence of proof used in TAG (the "transcendental argument for God").

We note that the charge of circularity used by opponents is a case of special pleading on their part.  They argue as if their worldview is not guilty of the "sin" of circularity.  Yet their argumentation is circular in the most vicious sort of way.  The most glaring example is the belief in the existence of an unproved disembodied universal abstract logic existing someplace in a materialist cosmos (or just as incoherent a platonic "heaven").  As Bahnsen pointed out it is unprovable on the basis of their presuppositions, citing the example: "How could one prove 'modus ponens' without using 'modus ponens'?"  One can't.  In other words, one has "modus ponens" because of "modus ponens"  -- one can't get more tightly circular than that.

To elaborate, here is a more immediate example from linguistics that illustrates the use of presuppositions in the presuppositional approach of Van Til: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" That question presupposes that the person did in fact engage in wife beating. That is the necessary presupposition that renders the question meaningful. This does not mean the presupposition is true or false. Also, note in this case the presupposition is not of the unprovable variety. In fact, the truth of the presupposition is potentially testable by empirical investigation. 

Above I mentioned that some treat a presupposition as an axiom. Unfortunately, that view was espoused by Gordon H. Clark in his version of presuppositionalism.  I agree with Van Til and Greg Bahnsen that Gordon H. Clark's version of presuppositionalism is fatally flawed¹.  His defense of Christian theism had to ultimately rest on the "axiom of Scripture." This essentially reduced Clark's system to fideism. As Bahnsen summarized: "Clark ultimately left Christianity without a rational defense."²      Clark's system leaned heavily to rationalism and deductive proofs when it came to the positive defense of Christianity. He was vehemently opposed to empirical evidence -- deeming it not a path to any knowledge. So much so that he claimed that science has no cognitive content regarding nature.  Only deductivism provided knowledge. These faults are serious, and actually are self destructive of Clark's system.³   One should be aware of the difference between Van Til's and Clark's  versions of presuppositionalism and not confuse the two.

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1 See Chapter 8.5, p.662 in "Van Til's Apologetic" by Greg Bahnsen for the critiques of Gordon H. Clark.^↩
2 p.672 in "Van Til's Apologetic" by Greg Bahnsen.^↩
3  N.B. Clark's writings are not devoid of value. His history of philosophy "Thales to Dewey" is an excellent text that thoroughly dismantles atheistic thought as being contradictory in all of its historical systems.^↩ 

Feckless Arguments: Atheist and otherwise. Heidegger redux redux: Fallacy of Special Pleading.

One of the things that impressed me when I first read Van Til was the intellectual rigor of the presuppositional defense of Christian theism. Greg Bahnsen repeatedly emphasized the objective truth of Christian theism and the surety of its proof via the transcendental argument outlined by Van Til.

An example of this intellectual rigor is shown by the fact that presuppositional apologetics rejects the so-called traditional "proofs," such as the ontological, cosmological and teleological proofs; since, as they are traditionally formulated they employ fallacies of reasoning. These are examples of fallacious arguments by Christians. Atheists equally employ fallacious arguments, which we will address below.

As for the traditional Christian "proofs," consider the cosmological argument, also known as the argument from causality. A naive presentation of the cosmological argument, in schematic, goes something like the following:

(A) Everything has a cause;
(B) the universe has a cause;
(C) therefore, that cause is God.

Of course, if premise A is a universal metaphysical principle, then God, too, has a cause; while if God has no cause, then premise A is not true. As formulated, this is an example of special pleading. It is intellectually embarrassing.

So then a better formulation is

(A) Every effect has a cause;
(B) the universe (which had a beginning) is an effect;
(C) therefore, that cause is God.

This version is less silly than the prior argument -- but is still fallacious. As Bahnsen has pointed out, it commits the fallacy of composition. It argues that since every effect within the universe has a cause then the universe as a whole has a cause. That is a fallacy. It also argues from immanent physical causation to a transcendent non-physical cause; again a fallacious jump. The sophisticated atheist believes (irrationally, of course) that physical reality as a whole is not an effect; it had no cause -- it is a brute fact. The fact that scientific evidence shows our universe (including time) had a beginning only means to an atheist that this universe is an effect that had a beginning as a "bubble" in some greater physical reality. Of course, such an atheist evasion smacks of the infinite regress that when it comes to "bubbles" it is "turtles all the way down!"

Such are the problems and lack of intellectual rigor of the so-called traditional cosmological argument -- including equally feckless rebuttals by atheists.

A presuppositional counter to the traditional cosmological argument is that the very idea of causation makes no sense outside of Christian theism. In fact, on the atheist ground, there is no justification of causality in general, or induction specifically. The problems of causality and induction described by Hume and Russell have been unanswered by atheist philosophy to this day.

On the other side we have an example from the anti-theistic camp in the question of Heidegger that I discussed here.

This interlocutor went from an initial "challenge" of :"Rather than asking about the existence of God, one should ask why there is something rather than nothing." Then, by including God in the abstract class of "something," flipped back, in a later exchange, to the same initial question of "Why God rather than nothing?" This, no doubt, is an example of "circular objections."

Of course the Christian answer is that God is eternal and self existent. But the question, "why God rather than nothing?" is itself an example of special pleading. It poses the question within a presupposed metaphysics of absolute "causality" and "possibility." For an anti-theist, everything, God included, and yes, even "nothing" (reified into a "something") are equal participants in the "arena of possibility." This type of atheist query inspires no more confidence than the original cosmological arguments given above.

It seems that to the atheist nothing is eternal and self existent unless it is the eternal principle of universal causation.¹ As such, the question is another example of the fallacy of special pleading.

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1 Note that such reasoning merely assumes some abstract notion of causation. To the monist the only causation is physical causation, so the implication of such a question is that God must be a material, physical being produced by physics also. In other words, God, like man, is a creature created by nature! -- again, yet more question begging.^↩

Reasoning by Presupposition: The Bahnsen-Smith Debate

I was perusing the apologetic blogs a few months back when I came across a comment by an atheist who claimed Christians never refer to the Bahnsen-Smith debate (although that interchange was more a moderated conversation than a debate). Well, that claim is not true. To rebut that claim, here is a link to the audio of that debate. A transcript of the audio can be found here. Another post of the dialog can be found here. This dialog is well worth studying to understand Bahnsen's use of the presuppositional apologetic. Apparently, that atheist thought Smith bested Bahnsen in that encounter. Incredible! Such an opinion, as we will see below, betrays superficiality and an unstudied philosophic naivete. Smith,and a caller-in named Max, clearly had no clue as to what hit them. Bahnsen's irenic answers rebutted all of Smith's claims.

One particular point, that has prompted the title of this article, was when Max charged that Bahnsen merely presupposed God.  Of course, it is not the case that we merely do so (as if, the presupposition of Christianity is a fideistic and unargued assumption). Bahnsen's reply that atheists presuppose atheism was priceless.  This is a perennial blind spot of atheists -- they think they are devoid of presuppositions and are staunch advocates of non-circular reasoning. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Atheists, in fact, argue presupposing atheism (consequently, this atheist's charge against Christians commits the fallacy of special pleading, sometimes called "the double standard fallacy"). However, the fact that both sides have presuppositions does not reduce the debate to a stand off. Not all presuppositions are "created equal." The problem for the atheists is that they have a multitude of unintelligible contradictory assumptions and viciously circular arguments, none of which are mutually coherent, and none which they can make good. This fact renders the atheist's presupposition(s) false and destroys his pretense to knowledge of any sort. This fact is evident in the many debates of presuppositionalists with atheists. Some atheists will even admit (on the basis of their assumptions, of course!) there is no certain knowledge or express doubt that knowledge is possible (not realizing the inherent self contradiction in such claims -- since they must know something in order for their language to intelligibly express their doubt. To put it ironically: "Why should anyone listen to someone who believes he doesn't know what he's saying?") On the other hand, the Christian presupposition is intelligible and provides the necessary grounds for knowledge and for the intelligibility of all of human experience. So again, there is no "stand off."

Here are a few more of the high points in the dialog:

• Max claimed reason is "natural!"  Another priceless moment.  Bahnsen pressed the point that abstract entities are not natural.¹  All Max said by way of "rebuttal" was a repeated "Oh boy!"  Bahnsen challenged atheists to live according to their presuppositions -- something they never do.
• Smith assimilated physical causation and logical laws (logical "law of identity" for instance).  Bahnsen succinctly pointed out that such is a major philosophical error.²  For starters, matter does not move according to abstract laws of rational thought (logic) -- matter obeys inviolable physical laws based on the properties of matter. The material universe is completely oblivious to abstract laws of logic. Laws of logic are standards of rational thought -- laws that can be violated by flawed reasoning.  As we have mentioned repeatedly, laws of logic presuppose minds with rational freedom (independent of material causation) and mental causal efficacy -- something totally antithetical to a universe composed solely of matter moving according to chance and causally inviolable physical laws. (In the materialist universe the only causality is, de facto, physical.) To put it another way, laws of logic are necessary and non-contingent; on the other hand, the physical world is contingent and the laws of physics are not necessary. (If they were, empirical science and experiment would be unnecessary.) This is usually stated succinctly by the phrase "logic says nothing about the contingent world." We should also point out that physicists can construct a multitude of consistent theoretical models of the material universe with existing and hypothetical entities, differing mathematical structures, different causal interactions, different values of fundamental constants, and so on. All of which show that the actual physical reality in which we live is not necessitated by logic. To summarize, logic and physics are categorially distinct. Contra Smith, logic cannot be reduced to physics.
• Smith trotted out the tired and fallacious "Euthyphro dilemma" to counter Christian moral claims.  Bahnsen succinctly rebuffed Smith by pointing out that Christian moral claims are rooted in the character of God Himself.  In Christian theism, God is ne plus ultra³. There is no "super-reality" above God; no laws above God.⁴  

In summary, Bahnsen  began the dialog by engaging Smith on the three fundamental areas of philosophy: (1) What exists? What is real? What are the constituents of reality? (Metaphysics/ontology); (2) How does one know what one knows? (Epistemology) and (3) How should we lead our lives? (Ethics).  Beyond Smith's philosophical naivete and reasoning errors, Smith, like all atheists, did not even begin to provide intelligible answers, based on his godless reality, in any of these areas. Smith's materialist atheism is: (1) metaphysical irrationalism (espousing the ultimate chance nature of reality); (2) provides no self-attesting theory of knowledge (rendering knowledge impossible, and thereby, Smith has no ground from which to criticize anyhthing); and (3) provides no basis for the existence of absolute morality or ethical truth (morality is not a property of material systems).  All through the debate, Smith argued in vicious circles and merely assumed the existence of human rational freedom (which is incompatible with the assumption of material monism), logic, moral laws, abstractions, conceptual reasoning -- all of which inexplicably spring out of chance and physical (material) causation (or, alternatively as in platonistic pluralism, are an incoherent plurality of independent and ultimate brute entities suspended in the "void").  As Bahnsen pointed out, all of these are problems in Smith's atheist universe, but not for Christianity. (In fact, Smith is assuming facts that are borrowed from Christian theism.) Smith's atheist presuppositions thus have been shown to be incoherent and self-contradictory on the atheist's own ground, while the Christian presupposition and Christianity is vindicated.  

Postscript

During the call-in section, Smith responded to a question regarding the Bible. Smith responded, "Well, I mean there are some decent things in the Bible, sure. There are some elegantly expressed moral maxims, that sort of thing." (emph. added.) Bahnsen, probably due to lack of time, didn't respond to this but the reply to this sort of remark is: "On what standard does Smith rely to determine morals?" Would he claim that standard is absolute and knowable? On Smith's view the moral statements of Christ would be no more authoritative than those of any other; merely subjective opinion and non-absolute. The fact that Smith likes some of them is not a basis for absolute morality. Some people like Coke, others Pepsi. Smith, like all unbelievers, is his own ultimate, and arbitrary, standard.

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1 Abstract entities, such as the laws of logic, are immaterial and not extended in space. As, such they are not empirically accessible; they are not natural objects perceived by the senses. For example, the law of deduction called "modus ponens" cannot be seen with the eyes. The question of the reality of abstract entities (especially universal and invariant concepts such as mathematics and logic) and conceptual knowledge lies at the root of the well known failures of rationalism, on the one hand, and empiricism, on the other, to provide a foundation for human knowledge. Both schools ended in skepticism regarding human knowledge. One should also consider that the modern phrase "logical empirical method" merely linguistically conjoins the two philosophical schools and thereby glosses the problems of both without solution, yet admits the distinction between the abstract and the natural. Stated in other terms, this dichotomy is also the distinction of deduction (necessary truths of reason) versus induction (contingent truths derived from generalizations of particular sense data). Bahnsen's point is that the atheist "universe" provides no intelligible account for either reason (human rational autonomy and conscious thought independent of material causation, existence and reality of universal laws of logic, etc.) or empirical knowledge/induction (given the atheist's commitment to ultimate chance and the irrational nature of the universe as embodied in quantum mechanics). On the atheist view, there is no bridging of the gap between the immaterial transcendent and unchanging truths of, say, logic or arithmetic, and the immanent and ever changing world of material flux. The problem that the atheist has with providing a justification of induction is well known -- it is a principle that cannot be deduced nor inductively derived (which is vicious circular reasoning and question begging). On the other hand, the transcendent God of Christian theism provides the intelligible answer to both deduction/reason (man is created in the image of God, the ultimate rational being and the source of man's reason -- behind the mind of man is the mind of the eternal God) and induction (God has created and faithfully sustains the cosmos ("...in Christ all things consist." Colossians 1:16-7). Further the existence of universal abstract entities, in that they are the contents of thought, are not eternal self-existent things existing in a mind-independent platonic world of ideas, but rather, the thoughts of the eternal God. They are real; and man, as the rational image of God, is to "think God's thoughts after Him," as Van Til has said. ^↩
2 Smith fallaciously used the example of the "Law of Identity" as "support" for his claim. Rather than the law of identity, one might think that the material conditional of logic ("if P then Q") would provide a more plausible support. However, it is generally known that the material conditional does not represent the concept of causality. See, for example, Paradoxes of Material Implication (in particular, see the example of switches in a series circuit in the section on "Simplification"), Material Conditional; and Causality (section titled, "Causality contrasted with conditionals"). Incredibly, Rudolph Carnap (a logical positivist) makes the philosophical error of representing causal laws via the material conditional in chapters 1 and 20 of An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. ^↩
3 Latin, literally,"no more beyond." ^↩
4 Amazingly, Michael Martin also fatuously uses a version of the "Euthyphro dilemma" in his flawed TANG ("Transcendental Argument for the Non-existence of God").  The Euthyphro dilemma presupposes a mythological platonic reality of ultimate abstract moral laws to which all the "gods" and man are equally subject (and of which laws they somehow have knowledge) -- as such, it is contrary to the claim of Christian theism that God is ultimate.  Thus Martin's counter does not apply -- it is a straw man. It is a logical fallacy of the most egregious type to assume the truth of "not A" to refute "A." TANG as a refutation of TAG is an utter failure. TANG is not even analogous to TAG. To be analogous, TANG would need to show: (1) that the Christian conception of God is contradictory and (2) that atheism (whether materialist or platonic pluralism) provides the necessary and coherent conditions for all of human experience -- including intelligible accounts of possibility of knowledge and existence of moral absolutes.  This, of course, is something that neither Martin nor millennia of failed atheist philosophy and science has done.  In short,  TANG is not a transcendental argument and Michael Martin does not understand transcendental argumentation (at least, he fails to understand TAG).  ^↩

More on TAG

A correspondent has asked, "Is 'logic' a premise of TAG (The Transcendental Argument for God)?"¹

This question underscores the typical unbeliever's inability to grasp the issues in the debate between totally antithetical worldviews. It also suggests a general unfamiliarity with transcendental argumentation -- as it construes TAG as a deductive argument, and it seems to lapse into a standard "deductivist" view of proof, so prevalent among many unbelievers.

First, TAG is not formally a deductive argument. Deductive arguments necessarily presuppose logic. Without logic, deductive arguments could not even get off the ground. So, the answer is, no, logic per se is not a premise of TAG.² In the presuppositional defense of Christianity, we do not presuppose a merely abstract and autonomous logic, nor do we posit it as a premise of a deductive argument leading to a conclusion of a God of indeterminate character or an abstract "God of the philosophers."

Second, when it comes to the issues of the existence of logic, abstract objects, and conceptual reasoning, in general, the point of TAG is that the godless reality of atheism, on the basis of its own metaphysical presuppositions, cannot account for their existence. For instance, the existence of logic and material monism are contradictory. Laws of matter and the ultimacy of chance do not produce mentally free, conscious beings who are capable of abstract thought. Materialism cannot account for the existence of immaterial abstract entities of any type (be it logic, mathematics, or moral laws).³ The existence of logic, then, is a problem, and failure, of the atheist worldview. As I have written before, atheists cannot give a "reason for reason." As such, atheists have no metaphysical ground for their presupposition of logic. Atheists, being "epistemological loafers" as Van Til put it, will not acknowledge this. Even in the face of continued prodding, they continue to use a merely assumed autonomous logic and reason, that is, just "take it for granted." But that is question begging and an intellectually empty response. Yet, on the other hand, they will assert that man and his mind was produced by (and thereby, still ruled by) ultimately random material processes. Atheism -- by asserting the autonomy of man (and thereby, the ultimacy of the human mind) along with the ultimately chance nature of temporal facts -- is self-contradictory. Atheism provides no grounds for any of its beliefs (articles of faith, as it were); it can only be adhered to by a willful intellectual blindness.

The positive presupposition of TAG is the existence of the Triune God of Christianity who has revealed Himself in the Bible, in nature, and within man himself. God is the metaphysical ground from which all human experience is intelligible. Logic (and other abstract objects) is not a problem for the Christian theist. Behind man's reasoning is the mind of God.

To reiterate the point: logic is a problem for atheists and agnostics; it is no problem for the Christian theist.

In response to the correspondent's question, I pointed out the following as an example of presuppositions: The laws of logic are laws of rational thought; as such logic presupposes a thinking mind. In Christian theism, that ultimate mind is the mind of the eternal and personal God. Though this may be wrongly interpreted as if it were a deductive argument, it is not. It is an illustration of a presupposition that underlies and is the metaphysical ground of human logic.

The correspondent responded with the question, "Why can't that mind be mine?" Indeed, that is the question for him to answer based on a presumed godless reality! Many questions come to mind. For example, where or from what did his mind originate? Did immaterial minds irrationally spring forth de novo from matter in motion (If indeed there be minds as opposed to mere physically determined material brains)? Was there a first mind? Or, is there an infinite past of finite individual minds begetting new minds, (coming into being at birth, then vanishing into nothingness at death)? Is his mind ultimate? If not, what produced his mind? Is his mind free from physical determination (i.e., does he have rational freedom and volition)? How many unrelated (material and perhaps non-material) causal principles does the unbeliever invent to account for the existence of minds? Are those causal properties, along with matter and minds, of which they are properties, eternal, uncreated, ultimate constituents of reality?  In addition, for a materialist the question is (a) how all the biochemistry going on in every human skull (different processes in different locations) gives rise to objective non-material abstractions, such as logic, or, if not a materialist, (b) from whence all these contingent minds emerged equipped with innate and invariant logic. Those are just a few problems for starters.

Again, the question remains for atheists and agnostics to answer on the foundation of their metaphysical presuppositions. Answers that millennia of atheist philosophies have failed to supply.

I've already given the Christian answer: Mind is not his alone. The ultimate mind is the mind of the eternal God of Christian theism.

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1 The historical connection of logic to TAG stems from Greg Bahnsen's use of the presuppositional apologetic in his debate with atheist Gordon Stein where Stein couldn't support the existence of, or use and reliability of, logic on the basis of his materialism. This was a defining moment for public awareness of presuppositionalism. In a way, it is a bit unfortunate that the debate paved the way for some, including Christians, to think that the existence of logic is the only or main element of TAG (thereby focusing attention mainly on logic in conjunction with TAG). But such is not the case. TAGs challenge to unbelief is that it cannot make sense (on its own presuppositions) of any fact of human experience. Thus, one can start with logic, or language, or mathematics or moral laws (among others) to expose the unbeliever's internal contradictions and refute the unbeliever's worldview or total view of reality. ^↩

2 What is at issue in the debate between Christians and unbelievers is not merely "logic," but the conception of logic that each participant in the debate holds. Logical reasoning is necessary -- for both parties -- in the encounter of belief with unbelief. When we reason with unbelievers we, of course, employ our God-given capacity for logical thinking. The unbeliever will likewise employ logic in the debate while all along denying God. However, the unbeliever typically does not question his capacity to reason, nor ask what is the metaphysical ground of the human ability to think and reason according to abstract laws of logic. The "logic" to which the unbeliever appeals (and which is his ultimate authority) is an autonomous "logic" that exists in a void. So an appeal to a common conception of "logic" is illusory. The totally antithetical conceptions of logic (among a host of other things) are at the core of the debate. Van Til addresses this issue:

"It appears then that if there is to be any intelligible encounter between the Christian and the non-Christian, it must be in terms of the two mutually exclusive visions that each entertains. To appeal to the law of contradiction and/or to facts or to a combination of these apart from the relation that these sustain to the totality-vision of either, the believer or the unbeliever, is to beat the air. It is well to say that he who would reason must presuppose the validity of the laws of logic. But if we say nothing more basic than this, then we are still beating the air. The ultimate question deals with the foundation of the validity of the laws of logic. We have not reached bottom until we have seen that every logical activity in which any man engages is in the service of his totality-vision." (Emph. added) Cornelius Van Til, The Case for Calvinism. The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Philadelphia, 1964. (Quoted from The Works of Cornelius Van Til, Logos Digital Edition).

As to the question of logic in the debate between totally antithetical worldviews Bahnsen writes:

"The antithesis (in principle) between the philosophical systems of unbelievers and the philosophical system of believers is so broad and basic that it even affects the way they deal with central philosophical notions like logic, possibility, and objectivity (to mention but a few). This observation should not be misunderstood. The presuppositionalist does not say that Christians and non-Christians inevitably accept and operate with completely different, specific laws of logic in their practical exercises of reasoning. Yet they do clearly disagree with each other concerning the nature, source, and authority of the laws of logic. Both worldviews may endorse and utilize the disjunctive syllogism or De Morgan's theorems, but when we inquire into what they are talking about, the evidence that is appropriate or persuasive for their claims (about syllogisms, theorems, etc.), or the necessity of the truths about logic, we get radically different answers -- which almost always betray differing convictions regarding metaphysics." (Greg Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Philadelphia, 1998. p. 280)^↩

3 It is true that there are some atheists who are not material monists -- but they are few and far between. There are idealistic monists (mind is the fundamental stuff of reality) and there are others usually referred to as "pluralists" who believe in a plurality of co-ultimate things (Roger Penrose, for example). But, in the case of the pluralists, merely asserting the existence of minds and a plurality of immaterial "platonic" entities with no coherent unity among them is question begging and provides no intelligible ground for human knowledge. In addition to being no answer to the problem of the one and the many, no atheist has given the account of what bridges the gap between the particulars of the atheist's material world with its basic chance characteristics and their eternal unchanging realm of universal "platonic" entities. As mentioned above, the existence of human minds in this worldview is also a major problem -- especially on the macro evolutionary account that human minds are no more than material brains assembled by (and thereby still controlled by) random physical processes. The dual atheist principles of human autonomy and the ultimacy of chance are contradictory.

The many problems of a platonistic conception of reality are well known, which explains why few advocate it, and won't be dealt with here. As to the idealists, which were more in vogue during Van Til's time, Van Til's writings, in particular A Survey of Christian Epistemology, provide a wealth of information on the internal contradictions of the idealists. ^↩

The Atheist’s Guide to Reality. The self-destruction of material monism.

A few weeks ago, I was contemplating why there are no atheist works on "systematic atheology"  (at least I was unaware of any.)  After all, there are many Christian works on systematic theology that lay out the basis and scope of Christian beliefs.   My interest in such a "systematic atheology" was that, should such a work appear, the self-contradictory nature of atheism would be laid bare -- straight from the horse's mouth. 

As it turns out, there has been an attempt, of sorts, in The Atheist's Guide to Reality by Alex Rosenberg.  The book lays out the hard-line implications of his particular denomination of atheism: material monism (matter is all there is) with scientism as his epistemological article of faith. Many of the absurdities of atheism are exposed to the light of day.   (And there is a final absurdity that Rosenberg says implicitly, but does not utter, which we will examine below.)  Some of the conclusions that follow from material monism (" a godless material reality" in which the only causation is physical causation) and which Dr. Rosenberg fully embraces are: 

• The only kind of  'mind' is a brain.
• There is no 'free will.' We are all robots moving according to the physical properties of matter.
• There are no objective morals of any sort.  Right, wrong, good and bad, they are all the same.

As Christians, we must say 'bravo' to Dr. Rosenberg!  If physics fixes everything then the above conclusions would be true.  His book is a brilliant self-refutation of atheistic material monism using its own presuppositions. . .and, thus, is TAG (Transcendental Argument for God) in brilliant display.

Dr. Rosenberg takes us down the same path on the implications of material monism that prominent presuppositional apologists Dr. Cornelius Van Til, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, and others have marked out before.   As well, some similar analysis has been posted in this blog.

Dr. James N. Anderson writes in his review of this book: 

"Christian philosophers have been developing and refining arguments for the existence of God since the earliest times, but it’s not often one comes across a convinced atheist making a powerful philosophical case for the existence of God. Yet that’s precisely what we find—quite contrary to the author’s intent—in Alex Rosenberg’s book The Atheist’s Guide to Reality."

Anderson's insightful review can be read at his blog.

I will add just a few observations.  A central tenet of presuppositional apologetics is that all non-Christian philosophical systems of thought (worldviews) are contradictory and reduce to absurdity, which Anderson discusses.  The coup de grace delivered by presuppositional apologetics is that non-Christian worldviews, when examined solely on the basis of their presuppositions, lead to the destruction of truth and knowledge.

Rosenberg's book promotes the conviction that only science leads to truth ("scientism").  He preaches with fervor the "truth" that everything consists of collections of fermions and bosons.  This is a scientific "truth."  Everything that is, or happens, is the result of laws of physics (properties of matter).  But then he asserts, after many chapters:

"Look, if I am going to get scientism into your skull, I have to use the only tools we've got for moving information from one head to another: noises, ink-marks, pixels.  Treat the illusion that goes with them like the optical illusions in Chapter 7.  This book isn't conveying statements.  It's rearranging neural circuits, removing inaccurate disinformation and replacing it with accurate information.  Treat it as correcting maps instead of erasing sentences." (p. 193. emph. added).

There are many falsehoods in that paragraph -- almost as many as there are words. (See Anderson's review, and his remarks on intentionality and aboutness.)   But the final epistemological suicide of material monism lies in these words: "This book isn't conveying statements."  And that is a really strange and fatal statement.  Here's why: statements (or propositions) are the carriers of truth value, which, from the implications of material monism, his book does not contain. . . a conclusion of material monism with which we wholeheartedly agree.

So then, Rosenberg has told us that his book contains no capacity to convey truth or knowledge (and that applies, as well, to: "This book isn't conveying statements.").  This is futility and the destruction of knowledge.  Nonetheless, Rosenberg tells us that "scientism" yields "truth," when by his own mouth he implies it doesn't.  Rosenberg's false metaphysics (material monism) supplies no basis for Rosenberg's false epistemology (scientism).

If material monism were true, then it would be false.  It is, therefore, false.

And that is the end of the matter.

Varieties of Anti-theism

In the not too distant past, my favorite agnostic asserted strongly that he was not an anti-theist.  In the context of the discussion, I knew he was talking of militant atheists, such as Dawkins, Hitchens, et al., and that he was not of their ilk.

That definition of anti-theism is very narrow.  My preference is to refer to Dawkins as a "militant atheist," and reserve anti-theism for any position or thought that stands in opposition ("anti") to theism.   That is how I have used the word in my essays.

For a comprehensive survey of "anti-theism" refer to this wikipedia entry, particularly the section titled, "Opposition to the idea of God."   There, the Chambers Dictionary defines anti-theism as:  "1. doctrine antagonistic to theism; 2. 'denial' of the existence of a God; 3. opposition to God."

Within the broader definition of anti-theism in the first definition, agnosticism and even some religious positions/postures are anti-theistic.

A particular case of the latter is the concession to the "myth of neutrality" on the part of Christian "evidentialist" apologists who debate atheists on the supposed "neutral" ground of "reason" in an attempt to "reason" to a probable God.  However, to debate in that way is to presuppose that reason exists in a possibly godless reality -- that presupposition is anti-theistic.  By adopting the epistemological standards of the unbeliever, the evidentialist violates Prov. 26:4, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."

Here is the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen's discussion of the "myth of neutrality":

[Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic Readings and Analysis, p. 146.]

"... the epistemological disagreements between believers and unbelievers [can] not be resolved in a neutral fashion, as though the issue of God's existence and character ... [can] be treated as secondary ­ and thus temporarily set aside without any commitment one way or another ­ while abstract philosophical issues [are] debated and settled. It is often, but vainly, imagined that once we come to agreement on our epistemology, we can apply those epistemological standards to the questions of whether God exists, whether miracles occur, whether the Bible is true, etc. By contrast, Van Til taught that abstract epistemological neutrality is an illusion and that, given the kind of God revealed in the bible, imagined neutrality is actually prejudicial against God.

"If God exists and is as the Christian world view claims, then His existence has an undeniable bearing on how we understand the process of knowing, the standards of truth and evidence, ultimate authority, and other crucial matters in epistemology.

"There is no pristine, religiously neutral, abstract 'reason' to which all men first swear their allegiance, only then to turn to such secondary matters as man's nature, moral character, relation to God, destiny, etc. The kind of man who is doing the reasoning already determines something about the way in which he thinks about reason and engages in reasoning. Thus Van Til stated, 'It is impossible to speak of the intellect per se, without taking into consideration whether it is the intellect of a regenerated person or of a non-regenerated person.'

"Van Til simply called for honesty and realism here. The metaphysical situation and object of knowledge (e.g., God's existence, the relation of created things to Him), as well as the psychological/moral situation and the subject of knowledge (i.e., man as a knower, someone using reasoning ability), cannot be ignored as we develop our views of knowing. 'Reason' is simply an intellectual tool, rather than an ultimate standard of knowledge (more authoritative even than God), and as such will be affected by the regenerate or unregenerate condition of the man using it. A person's epistemological behavior and commitments are ethical in character. According to Van Til, one's theory of knowledge is not neutral, but subject to moral assessment in terms of the ultimate authority to which one submits and which one attempts to honor."

Philosophical Houses of Glass

As the saying goes, "People living in circular philosophies should not toss circular objections" -- or something like that.

A frequent charge against Presuppositional Apologetics is that it is a circular argument -- it presupposes Christian theism in order to prove Christian theism. 

This objection comes from atheists -- who live in an irrational and circular philosophy -- but, amazingly, also comes from Christians. 

This objection has been put forward by "Classical" Christian apologist Professor William Lane Craig.  Craig writes in Five Views on Apologetics (p. 232-3):

"As commonly understood, Presuppositionalism is guilty of a logical howler: it commits the informal fallacy of petitio principii, or begging the question, for it advocates presupposing the truth of Christian theism in order to prove Christian theism…A Christian theist himself will deny that question-begging arguments prove anything…But at the heart of presuppositionalism lies an argument, often not clearly understood or articulated, which is very powerful. This is an epistemological transcendental argument…"

C.L. Bolt, on Choosing Hats has posted an analysis of William Lane Craig's objections to presuppositionalism (quoted above) in his post, William Lane Craig's Inconsistent Objections to Presuppositional Argument.  In summary, C.L. Bolt points out the glaring inconsistency of Craig's objection: Craig claims on one hand that TAG has never been "spelled out" adequately but then asserts that TAG is circular ("guilty of a logical howler"). 

To add to the perplexity, in Craig's criticism above, he pays a somewhat begrudging compliment to presuppositionalism, viz.

"But at the heart of presuppositionalism lies an argument, often not clearly understood or articulated, which is very powerful. This is an epistemological transcendental argument…"

So then, apparently TAG has been spelled out sufficiently for Craig to recognize the power of TAG.  If TAG is powerful, then one wonders how it is committing a "logical howler!"  Craig cannot have his cake and eat it too, as another famous saying goes.

But there is a deeper hidden inconsistency in Craig's objections. When Craig says presuppositionalism is guilty of a "logical howler" we should ask, "To what logic is he appealing?"  If he is presupposing logic as constituted in man by God, then he is presupposing Christian theism and is guilty of the same "logical howler."  If he is not, then he is presupposing "neutral" logic --  in that case Craig is presupposing atheist logic, contrary to his Christian profession  --   either way Craig's assertion is incoherent.   Of course, we know this because presuppositionalism, contra Craig's "classical" apologetic, is consistently Christian.  On the other hand, Craig's "classical" apologetic is blatantly anti-theistic.  As Van Til repeatedly illustrated in his writings, Craig's apologetic adopts the unbeliever's standards of objectivity and the unbeliever's commitment to his autonomous reasoning as the ultimate authority.  So then, Craig is not only arguing in a vicious circle, he is arguing from within the unbeliever's viciously circular presuppositions. 

Bahnsen has addressed this false charge of circular argument repeatedly.  Let me conclude with Greg Bahnsen's, succinct analysis from Pushing the Antithesis (p.123-5).  Here is a corrected quote (omitted text is enclosed in brackets):

"Before moving to our next response against the anti-metaphysical bias, you should be aware of a possible response that the unbeliever will bring against you.  He will complain that you are engaging in circular reasoning or the informal logical fallacy of begging the question.  That is, since we assert that God is self-verifying, we are assuming God in order to prove God.  However, we should note in response to this objection:
  (1)  We are not engaged in special pleading for the Christian worldview.  We are simply asking which system makes human experience intelligible.  For sake of argument, we will grant the unbeliever his system with whatever foundations he adopts in order to see if it can justify its truth claims.  But then he will have to grant us ours (for sake of argument) to see if we can justify our truth claims.  By the very nature of our God as the self-existing, eternal Creator, our worldview self-justifies its starting point.  (We will later explain this two-step procedure of worldview critique.)
(2) All systems must ultimately involve some circularity in reasoning.  For instance, when you argue for the legitimacy of the laws of logic, you must employ the laws of logic.  How else can you justify laws of logic?  This is a transcendental issue, an issue that lies outside of the temporal, changing realm of sense experience.  Laws of logic do not change: they are universal, invariant, abstract principles.
(3) "Circularity" in one's philosophical system is just another name for 'consistency' in outlook throughout one's system.  That is, one's starting point and final conclusion cohere with each other.  Here it is more fully explained:

The "circularity" of a transcendental argument is not at all the same as the fallacious 'circularity' of an argument in which the conclusion is a restatement (in one form or another) of one of its premises.  Rather, it is the circularity involved in a coherent theory (where all the parts are consistent with or assume each other) and which is required when one reasons about a precondition for reasoning.  [Because autonomous philosophy does not provide the preconditions for rationality or reasoning,] its "circles" are destructive of human thought--i.e. "vicious" and futile endeavors.

(4) The unbeliever has no defensible standard whereby he can judge the Christian position.  His argument either ends up in infinite regress (making it impossible to prove), has no justification (rendering it subjective), or engages in an unjustifiable same-plane circularity (causing it to be fallacious).  Without a self-verifying standard, he has no epistemological way out.  And only the Christian worldview has such a self-verifying standard.

Remarks on Transcendental Arguments

Choosing Hats posted a link to a new web site discussing transcendental argument (TAs).  That posting, which can be found here, has prompted me to add my proverbial 2 cents to the discussion.

In reflecting on TAG (Transcendental Argument for God) and its use over the years, I have come to realize that many are unable to recognize a transcendental argument.  There are probably several reasons for this, but one reason may be that most people who have exposure to logic are reared on the classic syllogistic form. TAs are not properly syllogistic and thus cannot be written as such.  (Though syllogistic schema have been employed.)
 
Transcendental arguments have a self-reflective property.  Typically, they consist of statements for which the speaker is under pain of self contradiction when uttered.  Some perennial examples are the so-called liar's paradox: "I always lie."  That statement, if true, would necessarily be false, and so it must be false.  The person speaking such is a liar -- just not a constant one!  Another example, pronounced a few months ago by my favorite agnostic, is: "There are no answers to Big Questions." That statement is an answer to a "Big Question," and thus self-refuting.   Finally, Descartes' dictum, "I think, therefore I am" is, in my mind, more forceful when stated transcendentally as,"I don't exist" --  a blatant self-contradiction.

The above TAs I will call "first-order" transcendental arguments, since they consist of statements that are directly self-referencing and self-refuting.   This type of argument is sometimes called "retortion."   TAs were recognized as destructing the very foundations of Logical Positivism which scoffed at "metaphysical" inquiry (one should raise an eyebrow immediately) and tried to base its epistemology (without metaphysics!) on the premise that all truth is either empirical or logically derived (i.e., tautology).   All else was metaphysical nonsense. The problem, of course, is that the foundational premise of Logical Positivism is neither a tautology nor an empirical truth.  Thus, Logical Positivism is metaphysical nonsense of the very sort they decried.  

Let's consider TAG.  In a nutshell, TAG is the statement that "There is no God" is self-refuting.  This is not direct retortion since it is not directly self-refuting, but the unbeliever carries a host of beliefs that would only be true in the Christian worldview, and thus when he utters "there is no God," he should abandon any of his beliefs that are only true in Christianity.  Some examples of those beliefs would be morality, the invariant laws of logic, justice, human independence from physical determination, and so on.  The list is long.  The unbeliever's worldview is ontologically, epistemological and ethically self-contradictory.  Since the unbeliever holds to contradictory thought, his worldview is irrational.

The fact that the unbeliever adheres to belief in the concepts mentioned above is another aspect of transcendental arguments: the idea of the stolen concept.

The unbeliever rails against God using beliefs -- such as morality -- that would not exist in the atheist world.  The claim that Christianity holds to beliefs that are immoral is an old line of attack, and one which Bertrand Russell attempted in "Why I Am Not a Christian."   It is a fallacious and self-defeating argument which also has been continued by some of the "new atheists," such as Christopher Hitchens, who attempt to use the concept of "evil" to deny God.  These arguments fail because "evil" would not even exist in an atheistic world, for there would be no such thing (!). As Bahnsen pointed out against Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian" (and which holds equally against Hitchens et al.):

     "On what basis, then, could Russell issue his moral evaluations and judgments? In terms of what view of reality and knowledge did he assume that there was anything like an objective criterion of morality by which to find Christ, Christians, and the church lacking? 

       Russell was embarrassingly arbitrary in this regard. He just took it for granted, as an unargued philosophical bias, that there was a moral standard to apply, and that he could presume to be the spokesman and judge who applies it." [Always Ready, p.156]

In fact, I recently corresponded with an agnostic who railed against God because he thought it seemed "unjust" that God would send a "good" atheist to hell.  His example was an atheist who did all sorts of "good" but only failed to believe in Christ.  That example is, of course, a specious argument since it conveniently ignores the issue of the evil acts of the hypothetical perfect atheist.  But regardless of that glaring oversight, the question that must be pressed is where does an agnostic's idea or standard of absolute "good," "evil" and "justice" come from?  There simply is no such thing in the atheistic world -- they are "stolen" concepts (or as Van Til said, "the borrowed capital of Christian theism") and thus that argument fails!

Then we have the case of Prof. William Provine, a material monist, who thinks he is "rationally" asserting that there is no human free will. Provine, as I previously pointed out, is consistent with his material monism when he reasons that human beings -- being no more than physical systems propelled by inviolable physical forces --  cannot be autonomous.  Yet, rationality presupposes freedom to be guided by violable laws of logic.   We have the picture of irrational physical forces compelling  "free" and "rational" actions -- actions that Provine has claimed are not possible!  Thus, Provine is self-refuting by way of a TA.  

I recently discovered that Epicurus stated the original transcendental refutation of Provine many years ago. Epicurus stated that one cannot rationally deny free will, since rationality (i.e., adherence to laws of logic) presupposes free will.  The argument as stated on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( link) is:

"Transcendental arguments can be characterized as demonstrations that the skeptic’s articulation of her own position is self-defeating in some way. These arguments imply that the skeptic cannot even coherently articulate a given position. Epicurus is reported to have argued that, without free choice, one assents to propositions only because one is determined to do so. Without free choice, then, it would be impossible to rationally assent to any proposition—that is, to assent to it because one has good reasons to think it is true, rather than because one must. The proposition that one has no free choice is thus self-stultifying, in that, if true, it cannot be warranted. This reasoning implies the following argument:

    (1) I am able to rationally assent to the proposition that there is no free choice.
    (2) I could not rationally assent to any proposition if there were no free choice.
    (3) Hence, there is free choice."

"That which cannot be true, must be false," and that is exactly what atheism is!  It asserts an impossibility.  It is a world that fails ontologically, ethically, and epistemologically. It is a world without rationality, ethics, or human freedom, yet the atheist presupposes such must be.  And since atheism is impossible, then agnosticism, too, is untenable.  The agnostic should immediately abandon his skepticism regarding God, since the skeptical agnostic essentially asserts that God's existence is unknowable and, thereby, it is possible that there is no God.  We might wonder just what metaphysical law of "possibility" exists that would demand such! If the only possibilities are dictated by the physics of material monism, then one has a most baldly vicious circular argument.

We also have the skeptic.  The global skeptic claims "nothing is knowable," and as shown above, he has been summarily defeated by a first-order transcendental argument. "I don't know anything" is refuted by the unintelligibility of the utterance.  So, what we really have is the relentless unbeliever who doubts everything except the power of his autonomous reason from which he launches his skeptical attacks.  He ought to wonder why his own reason is immune (!), and if he will admit that it is not, he ought to wonder why he busies himself with his skeptical arguments against Christian theism, all the while acting as if "his" reason is the ultimate authority!  In the last case, we see another person who should shut his mouth.  The fact that he does not is a testimony to foolish pride of the agnostic's heart and his reliance on his supposed self-sufficient autonomy.

In summary, all unbelievers have a prideful, irrational adherence to the power of their own autonomy and their autonomous reason. But such autonomous rationality would not exist in a reality wherein all acts are no more than the compelled effects of ultimate irrational quantum mechanical chance events. According to the atheist, man himself is nothing more than a manifestation of that ultimate irrationality and, thereby, the metaphysical equivalent of "sock puppets."

TAG at 25

As 2010 draws to a close, it seems hard to believe that it has been 25 years since Greg Bahnsen’s presuppositional apologetic first laid waste to atheistic philosophy in his debate with Gordon Stein. It was in that debate that Bahnsen referred to Van Til’s presuppositional approach as the "Transcendental Argument for God" or TAG.  The short sloganized version of the argument is Van Til’s statement that the Christian God exists because of the impossibility of the contrary.

Since that time there has been plenty written about TAG – a lot of it more noise and confusion based on a total misapprehension of the issues involved in the argument. To understate it, TAG is misunderstood by many. In fact, a lot of the noise surrounding TAG has come from Christian apologists of the so-called “classical” and "evidentialist" schools of apologetics. The most frequent of these charges is that TAG is circular. As well, this is a charge that occasionally comes from the man-in-the-street as a first-blush objection.

To dispel the mistaken charge of circularity, we should note first that historically Bahnsen’s debate opponents, Gordon Stein and Michael Martin, never made such a charge. Stein, for one, realized he had no answer to TAG and after the debate stated that he was working on a rebuttal; Stein never published a rebuttal. If the rebuttal were that TAG was circular, it is rather remarkable that an educated and intelligent man such as Stein never produced it. Then there is the professional philosopher, Michael Martin.  Martin has not charged TAG with circularity. If it were, Martin, too, would have had no problem producing the proof of circularity.

An oft-quoted aphorism states that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Martin, in fact, attempted to mimic TAG with his failed TANG (Transcendental Argument for the Non-existence of God). TANG, though not properly transcendental, attempted to be – and, as such, is a testament that Martin clearly understood the issues involved in TAG and recognized TAG’s power. But TANG, as Martin stated it, is intended to be a “counterexample” to TAG that thereby “logically” establishes that TAG is unsound. Therein lies the rub. Providing a supposed counterexample is not a transcendental refutation and is rather simply a restatement of an opposing worldview. To construct a transcendental argument, we must ask what are the contents of a worldview, and are they coherent, intelligible and not self-contradictory or self-refuting? In short, do they withstand the transcendental critique of being internally consistent (non-self contradictory) and non-arbitrary. Indeed Martin's worldview contents do not!  In fact the pluralistic godless world of Martin's TANG describes an impossible world which, in turn, proves God's existence!

In Martin’s case, his worldview is atheistic pluralism which he posits as the “necessary preconditions” for the non-existence of God. Of course, if God does not exist, he has no properties whatsoever (or whatever properties Martin wants God to have so that he would not exist under the postulates of his atheistic pluralism). The co-ultimate components of Martin’s pluralistic universe are nature, logic and morality. The God Martin describes in TANG is like one who awoke after an eternal nap and discovered himself surrounded by nature, logic and morality. In other words, physics, logic and morality are all ultimate and God is not. Such a God is not the God of Christian theism. The God of Christian theism is the ultimate being – and He is as He has revealed himself. To construct a counterexample based on a being who is not ultimate is simply a straw man, a logical fallacy, and misrepresents Bahnsen's point. So much for TANG being a counterexample to TAG and invalidating TAG!

So in the end, we have that TAG is not circular in the trivial manner that is charged – and this from the examples of atheists of repute among atheists.

What still remains then is the challenge of TAG to unbelievers, such as Martin, who merely posit the existence of one or more of the eternal uniformity of nature, morality, and abstract realities such as logic and mathematics. This is an incoherent mix of eternal impersonal ultimate things with no essential relation to each other. (And this does not include the additional challenge against the metaphysical irrationalism of the atheistic interpretation of quantum mechanics which calls into question any ultimate uniformity of the physical universe.)   Martin's incoherent mixture multiplies unrelated particulars and compounds unexplained irrational mysteries (for example, what is the source or basis of interactions between, physics, logic, and moral laws?).  On top of all this are the internal contradictions that spring from this mixture of "co-ultimates."

Since Martin is unable to provide an intelligible account of his absolutely independent and non-interacting eternal brute facts, he is unable to argue against Christianity on any ground whatsoever – whether it be morality, science, or logic.

For one example, Martin wants to appeal to “abstract logic” in TANG. But logic is a formalization of laws of thought -- that is of valid deduction -- and as such, logic presupposes a mind, and then a thinking being.  To postulate eternal mindless laws of thought is an absurdity.  But Martin doesn’t tell us where, when or how a mind came into being, whether there was always a mind (an eternal personal mind is something that is too close to theism for him, no doubt) or that it was born from matter-in-motion.

If Martin appeals to reality as just eternal matter and that the laws of physics are just expressions of the inherent properties of matter, one should see that the laws of logic are not inherent properties of matter. And if minds sprang out of matter, they are not free, and rather are always subject to the laws of physics – laws of thought nowhere enter the picture.

Without human free agency, one cannot provide an account of how matter obeying physical laws can generate actions that appear to conform to laws of logic, such as modus ponens, as just one example.  If someone would violate a law of logic in an argument and reach a false conclusion (compelled by physics, of course) it would be ridiculous to say the laws of physics were in error.  But such is one of the many contradictions of atheism.  Atheism is still transcendentally refuted by TAG.