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.^↩ 

Presuppositionalism Resource: Download PDF files of Van Til's Writings

The website Presuppositionalism 101 provides a valuable literary trove of  PDF files of books by Van Til.

Van Til is the father of the rigorous presuppositional approach to defending Christian Theism.  His approach is thoroughly Christian and scriptural based. If you haven't read some of these due to general availability, I encourage you to take the time to do so. Reading Van Til in his own words is rewarding and profitable!
 

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. ^↩

Van Til on the Antithesis of Christian and anti-Christian Philosophy

The following excerpt from "My Credo" (in Jerusalem and Athens: Critical discussions on the theology and apologetics of Cornelius Van Til. 1971, E. R. Geehan, Ed. The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Nutley, NJ.) is Van Til's summary of the presuppositional apologetic.

Paragraphs B.4, C.4 and C.5 are a concise description of the approach of the transcendental argument.  Paragraph B.4.a is the positive argument ("The God of Christian theism is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of all of human experience").  Paragraph B.4.b summarizes the negative argument (self destruction of anti-Christian philosophy, "Christian theism is true because of the impossibility of the contrary").   The outline also includes the summary of all anti-theistic philosophies:  they presuppose the dialectic of "regularity" (necessity) and "chance" and the antithetical presupposition of human autonomy¹.

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"B. My understanding of the relationship between Christian and non-Christian, philosophically speaking.

1. Both have presuppositions about the nature of reality:

a. The Christian presupposes the triune God and his redemptive plan for the universe as set forth once for all in Scripture.
b. The non-Christian presupposes a dialectic between “chance” and “regularity,” the former accounting for the origin of matter and life, the latter accounting for the current success of the scientific enterprise.

2. Neither can, as finite beings, by means of logic as such, say what reality must be or cannot be.

a. The Christian, therefore, attempts to understand his world through the observation and logical ordering of facts in self-conscious subjection to the plan of the self-attesting Christ of Scripture. 

b. The non-Christian, while attempting an enterprise similar to the Christian’s, attempts nevertheless to use “logic” to destroy the Christian position. On the one hand, appealing to the non-rationality of “matter,” he says that the chance-character of “facts” is conclusive evidence against the Christian position. Then, on the other hand, he maintains like Parmenides that the Christian story cannot possibly be true. Man must be autonomous, “logic” must be legislative as to the field of “possibility” and possibility must be above God.

3. Both claim that their position is “in accordance with the facts.”

a. The Christian claims this because he interprets the facts and his experience in the light of the revelation of the self-attesting Christ in Scripture. Both the uniformity and the diversity of facts have at their foundation the all-embracing plan of God.
b. The non-Christian claims this because he interprets the facts and his experience in the light of the autonomy of human personality, the ultimate “givenness” of the world and the amenability of matter to mind. There can be no fact that denies man’s autonomy or attests to the world’s and man’s divine origin.

4. Both claim that their position is “rational.”

a. The Christian does so by claiming not only that his position is self-consistent but that he can explain both the seemingly “inexplicable” amenability of fact to logic and the necessity and usefulness of rationality itself in terms of Scripture.
b. The non-Christian may or may not make this same claim. If he does, the Christian maintains that he cannot make it good. If the non-Christian attempts to account for the amenability of fact to logic in terms of the ultimate rationality of the cosmos, then he will be crippled when it comes to explaining the “evolution” of men and things. If he attempts to do so in terms of pure “chance” and ultimate “irrationality” as being the well out of which both rational man and a rationally amenable world sprang, then we shall point out that such an explanation is in fact no explanation at all and that it destroys predication.

 C. My proposal, therefore, for a consistently Christian methodology of apologetics is this:

1. That we use the same principle in apologetics that we use in theology: the self-attesting, self-explanatory Christ of Scripture
2. That we no longer make an appeal to “common notions” which Christian and non-Christian agree on, but to the “common ground” which they actually have because man and his world are what Scripture says they are.
3. That we appeal to man as man, God’s image. We do so only if we set the non-Christian principle of the rational autonomy of man against the Christian principle of the dependence of man’s knowledge on God’s knowledge as revealed in the person and by the Spirit of Christ.
4. That we claim, therefore, that Christianity alone is reasonable for men to hold. It is wholly irrational to hold any other position than that of Christianity. Christianity alone does not slay reason on the altar of “chance.”
5. That we argue, therefore, by “presupposition.” The Christian, as did Tertullian, must contest the very principles of his opponent’s position. The only “proof” of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of “proving” anything at all. The actual state of affairs as preached by Christianity is the necessary foundation of “proof” itself.
6. That we preach with the understanding that the acceptance of the Christ of Scripture by sinners who, being alienated from God, seek to flee his face, comes about when the Holy Spirit, in the presence of inescapably clear evidence, opens their eyes so that they see things as they truly are.
7. That we present the message and evidence for the Christian position as clearly as possible, knowing that because man is what the Christian says he is, the non-Christian will be able to understand in an intellectual sense the issues involved. In so doing, we shall, to a large extent, be telling him what he “already knows” but seeks to suppress. This “reminding” process provides a fertile ground for the Holy Spirit, who in sovereign grace may grant the non-Christian repentance so that he may know him who is life eternal."

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1 The atheist "robots," such as Rosenberg, Provine and Harris, deny human autonomy but inconsistently claim rationality and possession of "truth." In other words, they assert that it is true that they are devoid of free agency (i.e. "robots." cf. Invasion of the Atheist Robots) yet claim this conclusion is rationally and logically derived.^↩

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."

Pride and Prejudice - The Sins of Dogmatic Agnosticism

Recently, I was surprised in a conversation when an agnostic suggested that I may be suffering from the "sin of pride" in regard to my knowledge of and certain proof of the existence of God.  He expressed it something like this: "You seem to have all the answers."  The agnostic also remarked that he was more likely to listen to someone if he were more modest or humble in his assertions.  Now, I wonder if he would entertain such an attitude toward an accountant keeping track of his money.  This is an example of the agnostic's false prejudice.  He thinks that science yields knowledge --  nothing else does.  Of course, this prejudice is neither a tautology nor an empirical fact, so it is not scientific and hence, to the agnostic, not knowledge.  But it is his article of faith; totally subjective -- pure and unalloyed.

My friend's remarks betray the inconsistent and self-refuting presuppositions of dogmatic agnosticism - founded on human pride and prejudice.

The agnostic's axiom of faith (yes, agnosticism is irrational fideism) is that in the religious realm there is no truth --  or if there is, it cannot be known.  A corollary of this is that God - if there be one - is incapable of revealing himself or that he has done so incompetently (the usual and erroneous complaint is that there are contradictions in the Bible) -- and thus cannot be known.  

Agnosticism itself is a religious stance, and thus the agnostic declares his own agnosticism to be not a fact of knowledge.  He is thus a fideist, even though he maintains his agnosticism on supposed "facts."  He operates on these "facts" using the machinery of logic and the scientific method -- two abstract principles which he cannot account for or justify on his own presuppositions.  This makes him an irrationalist, too.  But such is the religion of "scientism"  that boasts of its rationality and reason!

The end result of all this is that the agnostic's skeptical religion has already made big claims about reality.   That is the prejudice.  As Cornelius Van Til has written:

". . . the point we should be most anxious to drive home is that in trying to be agnostic, and in trying to say that they have no need of metaphysics, they have already given one of the two possible answers to every question of epistemology that may be asked. They have, as a matter of fact, said that all the facts . . .  exist apart from God and are able to get along without God. They think they have said nothing at all about ultimate matters, while as a matter of fact they have in effect said everything that could be said about them, and, we believe, more beside. They have tried to be so modest that they did not dare to make a positive statement about anything ultimate, while they have made a universal negative statement about the most ultimate consideration that faces the mind of man. " (Van Til, A Survey Of Christian Epistemology) .

And as to the agnostic's supposed "humbleness" Van Til continues:

"Incidentally, we may point out that, in addition to being psychologically and epistemologically self-contradictory, the agnostic is morally self-contradictory. His contention was that he is very humble, and for that reason unwilling to pretend to know anything about ultimate matters. Yet he has by implication made a universal statement about reality. He therefore not only claims to know as much as the theist knows, but he claims to know much more. More than that, he not only claims to know much more than the theist, but he claims to know more than the theist’s God. He has boldly set bare possibility above the theist’s God and is quite willing to test the consequences of his action. It is thus that the hubris of which the Greeks spoke so much, and upon which they invoked the wrath of the gods, appears in new and seeming innocent garb."   (Van Til,  A Survey of Christian Epistemology).

Such is the agnostic's pride.

To the agnostic, it is the impersonal "unknown" that has endowed him with autonomy, thought and rationality and set him on the sovereign throne as the ultimate arbiter of everything.   Man is the measure of all things.  No matter that such things as thought and rationality would not exist in a godless reality.  The agnostic's stance is that he is the center of all things -- whether there be a God or not.   As C.S. Lewis summarized, pride is ". . . the complete anti-God state of mind." (Mere Christianity)

So, contrary to my friend's charge that the Christian who claims certitude and knowledge of God is guilty of pride, it is my friend who is guilty of pride.  In fact, his charge is absurd since God tells us that such knowledge is certain -- and God is the judge of what is pride, not the agnostic's subjective and arbitrary pronouncement.  The agnostic has no basis for the charge, nor does he realize that his charge of "sin" presupposes God.  The agnostic's charge of pride  -- having no moral justification and basis for the existence of sin -- is self-refuting and futile. 

But then. .  . all anti-theistic thought is self-contradictory and futile.


Proverbs 16:18  18 Pride goes before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5  3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:  4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)  5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

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.

C.S. Lewis' Transcendental Argument

I am unaware if C.S. Lewis was familiar with Cornelius Van Til's apologetic work. Nevertheless, Lewis' realization of the futility of his objection to Christianity is a concise example of a transcendental critique that is at the core of the presuppositional defense of Christianity.  The transcendental critique of antiChristian philosophies is that they are all self-destructive -- and thus, there is no philosophical standoff between Christianity and antitheistic and antiChristian philosophies such as atheism, agnosticism and other religions.  C.S. Lewis saw that the presupposition of evil and injustice did not comport with his atheism, and thus his attack on Christianity was, in actuality, a fatal self-inflicted wound to his atheism.  Here is his argument in Mere Christianity:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet.  Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.  If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. [Mere Christianity, pp.38-9.]

Authority and the "Heathen"

An agnostic friend has suggested that quoting Scripture in this blog is "preaching to the choir," and that if I really want to reach the heathen I should consider omitting it.  However, the theme of this blog is the presuppositional defense of Christianity.  Christian theism is defended as a whole, and is not a hypothesis to be established by anti-theistic and anti-Christian methodologies. Christian theism rests upon God's revelation in the Bible -- so I am perplexed as to how one can defend Christian theism without a Bible!  Would I first demonstrate the truth of the Bible based on a higher authority than God - an authority that exists independently of God, whether He exists or not?

My friend's suggestion is even more confusing given that he asserts, as do all agnostics, that there are no demonstrations or proofs of theism, or more generally that knowledge of God is not possible -- and so then, by a stronger argument, there could be no demonstrations or proofs of Christian theism.  On that view, don't quote the Bible and don't present any reasons for the defense of Christian theism, because the Bible may be false, reason is supreme and, thus, there is no defense of Christian theism.


That point of view sets up a game with a stacked deck.  How can one "reach the heathen" on such terms?  It's impossible!  On those terms, the heathen are unreachable -- by definition. Of course, the agnostic's assertion of "no proof" is itself a very huge claim about the nature of ultimate reality and of God's place (or non-place) in that reality (to be expanded at a later time).  As Van Til aptly put it, the issue is not between saying something about ultimate reality or saying nothing.  Rather, the issue is between saying one thing or saying something entirely different.  So then agnosticism, as a philosophy, is not "neutral" -- it has said everything about the type of God it might allow. And that God is emphatically not the true God of Christian theism. So much then for the supposed noble "open mindedness" of agnosticism.

You see, agnostics have an ultimate authority, too.  Agnosticism rests on the presupposition of the reliability and authority of autonomous human reason.  But when you challenge an atheist or agnostic to provide the basis for that authority, you will very likely be presented with a look of incredulity.   Some may even think you are denying logic and reason when you challenge them to provide the reasons (on the terms of their worldview) for the authority of reason. Of course Christians are not denying logic and reason.  Again, it is an issue of saying one thing or something entirely different.  On the agnostic's side we have autonomous human reason; on the Christian side we have reason as created in man's mind by God.  The latter is intelligible, the former is not.

Of course, material monism provides no basis for the existence of human reason.  In material monism -- in which all that exists is matter-in-motion evolving in time by way of random physical forces -- there is no room for human freedom.  And what is more, if there is no room for human freedom, there can be no room for free human thinking and reason, either.  So then, no matter how much Dawkins, Hitchens and others appeal to their "independent thinking" guided by the scientific method that led them to their "beliefs"  -- their "appeal"  is incredible and inexplicable.

Furthermore, material monism cannot account for human intentionality guided by adherence to abstract laws of logic/reason.  For in that view, all human "motions" are forced motions produced and determined by ultimate irreducible blind chance.  This "human reason" would have developed from a mindless and unguided universe of matter evolving by chance over time.  On that view, the material universe is mindless, purposeless, alogical, and absent of morals.  So then, materialism not only has no absolute morality and purpose (of all varieties), but it cannot even provide a basis for the existence of subjective morality and relative purpose that the atheist and agnostic alike fall back upon!

So then on the above analysis, neither atheists nor agnostics can account for the existence of reason and the scientific method that are their authorities.  A previous blog entry mentions Professor William Provine, an atheist who -- to his credit -- states openly that materialism leaves no room for human freedom.  As a typical atheist scientist who employs and  relies on the scientific method, he is an example of a walking, talking self-contradiction of atheism.  Professor Provine cannot, on one hand, be a free, independent thinker, guided by logic and the scientific method, and also be a purely and absolutely dependent physical system guided solely by mindless quantum mechanical chance. These two views are antithetical.  Materialism and physical laws are fundamentally a-teleological, while human planning and human reasoning via abstract logical principles are teleological.  Men do actions "in order to...."  Such are the internal contradictions of atheism.

Atheists and agnostics (the "heathen") are sinners in God's creation and need to be presented with their sin in all its manifestations.  Their prideful and irrational faith in autonomous reason and consequent unbelief and rejection of God is sin.  Whether they are "reached" is by grace -- and that grace comes from the God of the Bible.  So then, there are two issues at work here.  There is the apologetic task and there is evangelism -- both require the Bible.  It is true that in the course of the apologetic task, evangelism may also occur, but conviction and conversion are in the hands of God.

Should I not quote Scripture to defend the truth of Christian theism, and should I not quote Scripture to reach the heathen? What does God say?

"So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God."  Romans 10:17.

Asking the wrong question.

At the end of the movie Collision, Hitchens was asked whether he believes there is “cosmic justice” at the end of time. Hitchens – being somewhat consistent with his materialist worldview – replied that there is none. However, this is not really the right question to ask him, because such a question presupposes that there is such a thing as justice and does not challenge Hitchens to account for justice on his presuppositions.

The question should be not whether there is such a thing as justice whose demands are not satisfied, but rather that in Hitchens' materialist atheism, the world is intrinsically and fundamentally amoral. There is no such thing as "right" and "wrong" inherent in physical processes, and, hence, there is no such thing as justice. Period.

Hitchens – when he attempts to attack Christianity as immoral – is appropriating absolute moral laws which would not exist according to his material atheism.

That was one point Cornelius Van Til made regarding unbelievers – they finance their worldview / philosophy using the borrowed capital of Christian theism. They oppose Christianity by adopting the truths of Christianity. However, such opposition is thereby self-defeating.

When Hitchens attempts to use logic/reason to attack Christianity, he is again using Christian capital to assail Christianity. Logic does not exist in the atheist's world of material monism.

Hitchens' materialist world is not only amoral, it is also a-logical, and a-mathematical. It is impossible to climb the ladder of physicalism -- in which every rung is physical causation via inviolable physical laws – and reach the non-physical “Platonic” heaven of logic and mathematics. Such realities cannot emerge from physical processes. There is an infinite, insurmountable gap.

The alternative, some form of Platonic atheist pluralism (as held by atheist Michael Martin)- in which there are equal absolutely independent ultimates of matter, logic, moral laws, and mathematics - is just as contradictory and incoherent.

Atheism – whether of the material monism variety or a godless pluralism – is irrational belief in the impossible. But more on that another time.

You Can’t Oppose Something with Nothing! (Part 2)

In a previous post, I briefly commented on the Hitchens-Wilson interview on Imus. No doubt the condensed exchange will not convince any atheist that atheism is irrationalism in its most advanced and refined form. But to those who know the truth and who “are ready always to give an answer to every man that asks a reason of the hope that is in you,” Hitchens' abject failure is palpable. In addition to failing to provide a rational account of how a naturalistic metaphysics justifies his epistemology and ethics, Hitchens commits several faux pas in the interview. The failure to provide rational accounts for the foundations of one's epistemology is the “epistemological loafing” of all atheists. The two faux pas are Hitchens ' blatant “unscientific science” (a symptom of his epistemological loafing) and faulty reasoning as to what constitutes “sufficient proof.” (I’ll pass commenting on the straw man of lumping all religions into one basket and using non-Christian beliefs to attack Christianity.)

Epistemological loafing.

Hitchens continues the myth that atheism need not prove anything – that it is the theist who must prove God’s existence. According to Hitchens, the theist has the “tougher job.” The theist must prove God’s existence and until such proof is presented, then Hitchens and his “reason” can exist quite well without God. The problem with this mistaken notion is that the atheistic “scientific” worldview purports to explain everything in terms of matter which is governed by the laws of physics (reductionism). But if that is so, then Hitchens must provide the reductionistic explanation for his “reason” (epistemology). An impossible task that Hitchens conveniently ignores!

Hitchens’ view is symptomatic of atheists and is a case of what Cornelius Van Til called “epistemological loafing.” Put succinctly it is the idea that epistemology requires no metaphysical foundations and that such realities as consciousness, minds, laws of logic or even mathematics and the scientific method require no explanation. Such a view just posits these as unexplained and unrelated brute facts. This is a view that is fundamentally at odds with the supposedly “scientific” atheist philosophy.

Scientific reductionism – that everything springs from matter in motion and physics – requires a scientific explanation tracing the observed realities of consciousness, minds, laws of logic, etc., back to the material foundation. Hitchens refuses to answer or explain how logic arises from “colliding billiard balls” (as Wilson described the reductionist world view) – and thus indeed Hitchens' epistemology is suspended from a quite unscientific “sky hook." Hitchens' methodological presuppositions are impossible in the godless reality posited by his metaphysical commitments. Again Hitchens continues the atheist tradition of ignoring such and refusing to address the tough questions.

Unscientific Science! Or Hitchens does believe in the “Sky Hook!”

Hitchens totally ignored Wilson’s “sky hook” challenge. In an amazing sequence, Hitchens’ defense of reason is nothing more than a statement of the empirical fact that he is reasoning! But the scientific method does not account for phenomena by merely restating the phenomena! That is no explanation and is a vicious circularity, which I demonstrate with a hypothetical example. My hypothetical neighbor is a radical “afordist” – that is he denies that there is a Ford Motor company. Yet he owns and drives a Ford motor vehicle. One day as my neighbor pulled into his driveway in his Ford, I challenged him to account for the existence of his Ford in his "Ford-Motor-Company-less" reality. He responded,“Speaking of Fords, nonetheless here I am driving one!” We would certainly be amazed at such a statement, and, no doubt, marvel at the audacity that such was proffered as an explanation! Yet, Hitchens offers the same response! An observation is not an explanation of an observation – science does not work that way. . . .So much for Hitchens ' “scientific” worldview. Reason is just a “brute fact!” Wilson is right – Hitchens believes in “sky hooks!”

Even worse, however, is Hitchens’ view of “reason,” which is even more bankrupt. Hitchens called his “reason”, a “dim candle” and called it the only candle he has. He then conceded that it may “yield paradoxes and contradictions”! And as above, Hitchens and all other atheists have yet to provide an account of how logic arises from the motion of matter. Logic, being non physical, cannot emerge from a long chain of physical processes. The physical only begets the physical – to believe otherwise is to believe in the impossible. Yet, unbelievers continue to believe in realities emerging from the “void,” rather than acknowledge God, their Creator.

Sufficient “Proof?”

Amazingly, Hitchens seemed to be pleased that the empirical fact of the many divergent and contradictory religions in the world is a “sufficient proof” of atheism. Wilson handily disposed of Hitchens by responding that the Biblical account of sin also explains the existence of divergent religions. So much for the “sufficiency” of Hitchens' “proof.” The important point: That Hitchens thinks this is a sufficient proof reveals much about the shallowness of his beliefs.


What is it about “Reductionism” that Hitchens doesn’t grasp?

Reductionism asserts that all that exists is the material universe governed by the laws of physics. So, it should go without saying that the only laws that exist are physical laws. According to reductionism, everything else is explained by, and emerges from, matter-in-motion.

Written in terms of scientific “disciplines,” we would have:
Physics –> Chemistry -> Biology -> Consciousness –> “Reason” / “Logic” –> Ethics/Morality, and so on.

The only laws are those at the bottom (i.e. physical laws). We have yet to see the explanation of how nonphysical immaterial realities such as mind, reason, laws of logic and mathematics, for instance, arise from the random collocation of physical matter (“clatter of billiard balls”). Wilson challenged Hitchens to explain such. Hitchens declined.


Innate Morality?

Hitchens would be closer to an intelligible statement if he claimed that the laws of physics are a brute fact and innate to matter – those laws being inviolable and universal in space and time. But as above, in the atheist reductionist worldview, the only reality is matter in motion (a la Wilson’s billiard ball illustration) and the only laws are the inviolable laws of physics – there are no moral “laws.” Wilson effectively rebutted Hitchens when he pointed out  that according to Hitchens evolutionary worldview there are no constant, universal moral laws; thus, in the evolutionary worldview there is no innate morality -- so Hitchens contradicts himself yet again.

According to physics, all that exists is a variety of physical activities of random material subsets of the universe. The random “moral” behaviors are the natural effects of random physical processes. Some subsets act one way, others some other way. We would expect diverse “biological” systems to exhibit diverse non-invariant, non-universal “norms.” For some female organisms, males are a tasty post-coital meal. And there are humans who eat other humans. Now Hitchens may object to such for humans (but arbitrarily so in his godless universe), but it is clear such is not “innate” in the world Hitchens posits. There is nothing reprehensible or commendable about physical systems evolving according to strict physical laws. One man likes Coca-Cola, another likes Pepsi – some men consume other men, some men don’t. So then, there may be behaviors of atoms that are what Hitchens would like to call “moral” – but such is mere nominalism. Such “laws” change through time, and vary in different locales. Thus, there are no absolute moral “laws” – societal norms are arbitrary and relative to the local society – one man’s law is another man’s oppression, one group’s “good” is another group’s “evil.”

Such “laws” are, of course, violated repeatedly, both within and between “societies” (and necessarily so, since such “violations” are caused by the underlying inviolable physical laws)! In the atheist worldview all we have is one piece of the universe “complaining” about the physically determined “behavior” of another piece of the universe. This is absurd. Such moral “concepts” are, at rock bottom, meaningless in the atheist worldview.

Of course, men do have a sense of morality because they are created by God.  Hitchens relies on a perverted use of such when he rails against Christianity.  Hitchens, like all atheists, attacks Christianity using moral precepts that are only intelligible in the Christian wordlview.