The Transcendental Argument Revisited

Introduction to the Transcendental Argument and Recent Apologetics Speaking Engagements

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today we are going to be back in the presuppositional apologetics transcendental argument sort of topic and so there have been a lot of things that I've wanted to cover but I figured because I've been so busy I figured just kind of staying in the realm of topics that are my wheelhouse and there's just so much to say on them and there are often so many questions relating to issues relating to presuppositional methodology transcendental arguments and things like that that I put together some slides and I want to go through some things here and hopefully it would be it will be pardon it will be helpful to those who will who will be listening in.

So just to give kind of a rundown on what has been going on. Okay I just returned I think to one two weeks ago from Kansas I was invited to speak out in Kansas to a church but it was part of a campus ministry and so they're associated with a university down there or over there and I gave three talks one talk on apologetics in general so I was able to lay out the presuppositional approach its biblical foundations and things like that.

And then the second talk I gave on atheism what atheism is how does how does one apply a presuppositional approach to atheism and so we talked about the the various aspects of atheism the different forms of atheism not sure if folks are aware of this but not not all atheists are the same right.

You have different forms of atheism. You have hard atheism you have soft atheism hard agnosticism soft agnosticism. We won't go through what those mean but there's there's some variations there and so we just talked about how how to apply a presuppositional approach to the various flavors of unbelief.

And then the the third session I spoke on Roman Catholicism and so afterwards we had a really great time with Q &A and I think the recordings will be available hopefully soon and I'll share snippets of those talks in the future.

So so yeah that's what I've been up to. Things have been going really well and so if anyone is interested in having me come to their their church or their event that's that's totally a thing I don't just do YouTube for those who have followed the channel for for quite some time you guys know that I am a full-time teacher but when I'm not teaching I am actually a traveling speaker and so I speak for conferences.

I've spoken at Texas A &M International University some years ago I'm traveled to various parts of the country to give talks on apologetics and sermons and theology and things like that. So if you want me to to come out to your church or your event or you want to set something up that can be done if you go to revealed apologetics calm right there on the home page there is a section where you can fill out just very simply kind of little text box there and it goes straight to my my email and we can set something up.

So so yeah just throwing that out there now I am kind of blabbing here at the beginning before I jump in because this is a live stream some kind of waiting for folks to kind of trickle in so I'll take the opportunity to also talk a little bit about my course.

Now I do have a course that I offer on my website. If you go to my website there is a link in the description of this video and I also put a link to the page in the comments. If you're looking to support revealed apologetics one of the best ways that you can do that is of course like and share as all the youtubers like to say but you could also you can also sign up for a five-week course that I recorded some years ago and it's still available on the website and there are two versions of the course.

One version of the course is a base we call the basic package and when people sign up for that and people can still sign up for the basic package anytime we will send you the five recorded lectures. It comes with all of the PowerPoint slides all of the outlines and once you go through the course you can work on it at your own pace and you can use the material in your own churches or whichever context that you would find it useful.

But I haven't actually given the premium package in quite some time and so the only difference between the premium and the basic package is that if you sign up for the premium package there is a schedule.

Okay the courses will start in January 15th. Okay and throughout the five weeks I hold a private zoom session about an hour long. Sometimes we go over where I will be there and we will go deeper into the content of the videos.

And so in the past when I offered this it was awesome. We've had people from all over the world meeting there on the zoom. When I was I got to meet you know a bunch of people who follow the channel and have benefited from the content as a matter of fact if you guys seen a past video you if you saw me drinking from a mug with a picture of Greg Bonson on one side and turn it around it says the impossibility of the contrary that that mug was actually given to me by one of the the people who signed up for the course and that was kind of a gift they gave me and I really appreciated that.

So so yeah if you if you want to hang with me for five weeks one zoom session a week starting January 15 sign up for the premium version of my course and that's also a super helpful way to support the channel.

It might be a good Christmas present to if you know someone who wants to kind of dive deep into apologetics and presuppositional ism you might want to check that out all. Right. Well all of the commercials aside we're gonna jump right in and this is a live stream.

So if you have any questions I will try my best to get to some of them. I just recovered recently from losing my voice so you might if you notice my voice has that kind of deep radio voice. That's because as a teacher I'm always talking so my voice is really deep.

So so yeah if you have any questions throughout the course of what I will be presenting here please feel free to preface your question with question so it doesn't get mixed in with the comments. Okay so we have a question already.

You know there we go all right. So there's a question what do you teach. Eli. Yeah so I teach at a Christian private school. It is a Christian private school set in what's called the classical tradition.

So it is a classical Christian private school. It places a great emphasis on worldviews and the interconnectedness between the different disciplines like math history literature. They teach Latin to language all these sorts of things are done within the context of a consistent Christian worldview and so what you're going to be taught in one class will also be supported in the other classes that try to include biblical integration and everything that we do.

So it's it's pretty awesome. It's basically kind of like a presuppositional school if you think if you think about it so pretty cool. But I teach 7th and 8th grade. I teach 7th grade Old Testament biblical history and I teach 8th grade logic which it's basically an apologetics course with an emphasis on logical argumentation.

So we talk about logical structure deductive inductive arguments add up the abductive arguments logical fallacies and then we prepare them to debate at the end of the year. So that's that's what we do.

It's it's pretty awesome. I all of the dignity and the stature that I bring to my speak engagements are all out the window. When you're trying to teach this stuff to seventh graders and eighth graders it could be challenging but I've got great students and so I'm really appreciative of my students and the school that I work at.

It's a pretty awesome awesome place. So so there you go. So that's that's what I teach. So I hope that was helpful here. The name of the school is Carrie Christian Carrie Christian school. We call it CCS.

So if you're looking to enroll if you are in the carry area North Carolina or anywhere near that that area you should totally check it out. Okay so there you go all right. Well with all of that aside I'm gonna put my slides up.

Deductive Form of the Transcendental Argument

We're using slides today folks so hopefully the visuals will will prove helpful. I do apologize. It says transcendent all argument. That's just a formatting issue. It's supposed to be transcendental argument.

So just in case you didn't notice and I want to talk about the transcendental argument and I want to talk about it in the form that I like to to put it in it. It's basically I put the transcendental argument in a deductive an inductive form.

Okay now for those who don't know much about logic I want to kind of make this as easy and understandable as possible. A deductive argument typically has a premise a premise or a step in a step that has a conclusion that logically follows from the previous steps.

So a typical deductive argument that you know first year logic students will hear is something along the lines of soccer. All men are mortal. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man therefore Socrates is mortal.

Okay all men are mortal. Socrates is a man therefore Socrates is is mortal. So if the premise premise one is true premise two is true then the conclusion follows logically and necessarily. So that so I like to put the transcendental argument in a deductive form and then defend the premise.

That is really the key point in the presuppositional argument. I I'd like I defend that transcendental. We'll talk about what all that means in just a bit. Okay so let's take a look here. Let's define terms.

This is so important especially when I'm teaching but also when you're learning these things as you're listening to me. Right. It's so important to recognize the the importance of defining your terms.

And so when we talk about transcendental argument I almost never use that language when I am actually using the argument in discussions matter of fact even though we are going to talk about a logical syllogism and talk about preconditions of intelligible experience and these sorts of things.

I want to encourage people who are listening as we walk through the argument. I want you to try and contextualize what you're hearing. That is to say that what you're hearing in this video. Okay and in this presentation is not going to be appropriate in every context in which you are speaking with an unbeliever.

Okay and so you want to take what I'm saying and learn to contextualize what I'm saying. Okay so so just want you to keep that in mind. All right. So there's a question here. So let me jump in here. So good thanks for the questions here and I hope you guys don't mind.

I usually wait till the end but I'm like you know what. Let's just grab some questions that I'll try my best to answer. So all right question. Just because Christianity provides the necessary preconditions for intelligibility.

Why does that make it the only true worldview. Okay. Well that's a great question. Talita who. Paul. I hope I pronounced that correctly. You're just gonna have to wait. Talita. That's actually part of my presentation.

So we'll talk about that. Okay all right. Thank you so much for that question. I hope you can kind of just put a put a pin in that and we'll try to address it as part of my slides. We'll talk about why there must be one only one necessary precondition for intelligibility and and why it's Christianity.

Okay all right. Thank you so much for that. But feel free you guys have questions you could ask as I'm teaching and I will stop and try my best to address your questions. Okay it is. This became an issue for me.

Usually I wait till the end and then I thought to myself you know it kind of stinks if I were a person watching a video and I had a question like darn I have to wait all the way to the end of this long video to get my question answer.

So I'll try my best to answer questions as they come in and as I'm able you ask me a question. You know stump the apologist. Right. I don't know everything. So I will try my best to answer if I can. All right.

So let's take a look here. Let's let's jump right into our slides here. Okay so transcendental argument first before we talk about the transcendental argument because the presuppositional apologetic method has as its centerpiece of the transcendental argument and we need to make a distinction between the transcendental argument and transcendental arguments in general.

Okay I'm gonna say that again. That's a key distinction here. Okay we want to make a distinction between the transcendental argument. Okay and transcendental arguments in general. Okay so there are transcendental arguments in general and then there are specific transcendental arguments.

You can kind of they are presented differently sometimes you know for example Greg Bonson to my knowledge who is one of the prize students of Cornelius Vantill and the popularizer of presuppositional methodology I don't believe that he had ever presented the transcendental argument in deductive form.

That doesn't mean that anything I'm doing especially just helps me lay out the argument in a way that I have found is helpful for people to see the line of reasoning involved in the argument. So but it's not typically presented in a deductive form at least in Vantill and Bonson.

Maybe frame has an argument along those lines in a deductive form that I don't remember but nevertheless. Okay we make a distinction between transcendental arguments and then the transcendental arguments.

Let's talk about transcendental arguments in general. Okay so in logic you can have various forms of argumentation. There are deductive arguments as I mentioned before where you have a premise a premise and a conclusion that follows logically and necessarily you could have an inductive argument.

It's based off the kind of inductive reasoning where the conclusion gives you kind of a high probability or a high likelihood of a specific conclusion. So for example if if there are ducks in my pond every you know summer I cannot reason thusly that therefore there must be ducks in my pond next summer.

But based on the patterns of my experience I can infer that very likely ducks will be in my pond. Okay. And so inductive arguments kind of you know trade on that idea of kind of like based upon our experience kind of we can generalize and kind of project into the future what what might be the case given the circumstances.

Okay then you have abductive arguments which are inferences to the best. I hope I'm remembering oh my goodness recently I've been I've been feeling mentally mushed. Okay so I apologize I cannot guarantee the orthodoxy or the accuracy of anything that's coming out of my mouth.

I'm just kidding. As you have abductive arguments inference to the best conclusion. You have deductive arguments add up the abductive arguments. You have transcendental arguments. Okay. And transcendental arguments are really I think a unique way of arguing as it is it's it's trying to demonstrate something that deductive arguments generally and inductive arguments aren't okay.

It's asking transcendental arguments are asking more paradigmatic sort of questions like what must be true what are the preconditions in order for something else to be possible. Okay. So let's take a look at the at the structure of a transcendental arguments.

If you look there on the top for any X to be possible now when we speak of X. Okay those who aren't familiar with logic okay X can be any proposition that I want to make it okay so an X can be. You know I don't know for any knowledge for any knowledge to be possible right X can be filled with any propositional content I would like in as much as it's part of the argument I'm trying to make okay and the same thing for Y.

So for any X to be possible Y must be the case because Y is the necessary precondition for the possibility of X X is possible therefore Y must be the case. Okay. For any X to be possible Y must be the case because Y is the necessary precondition for the possibility of X X is possible therefore Y must be the case.

Okay. And so basically for any X to be possible you're arguing that Y is the necessary precondition for whatever X is okay. Y must be true in order for X to even be possible. Okay. And that's simply to say that Y is the necessary precondition to have there on the slide there necessary precondition refers to what must be the case in order for something else to be the case.

Okay. For example logic is a necessary precondition for the existence of meaningful statements. Okay. If logic was wasn't a thing okay we wouldn't make sense. Okay. So logic is a necessary precondition of intelligible or meaningful experience.

Okay. So that is a transcendental argument generally speaking. All right. And so as I said before there's a distinction between transcendental arguments in general and the transcendental argument more more specifically when arguing along presuppositional lines for the existence of God the truth of the Christian world be those sorts of things.

Okay all right. Let's move on to the next year. Okay. And by the way in the comments if you just give like a thumbs up or something if if you are following and it's being explained in a way that is easy for you to follow up that's helpful for me.

When I'm teaching in a classroom I'll often ask my students before I move to the next slide. Does that make sense. Does that make sense. And of course if they're not sleeping they'll be again. And that makes sense.

Right. So if you can let me know in the comments that'd be that'd be super helpful. So let's move on here. Okay let's see here. So now let's take a look at the transcendental argument as I like to present it.

Okay and so again it is not typically it is not typically a put in this particular form but I like to put it in this particular form. So I'm kind of thinking I'm looking at the the comments here. Let me see here.

Okay so it's elite. There we go. Let's see here. We got a question here to lead to what if someone says to you my God is exactly the same as the Christian God except that he doesn't think homosexuality is wrong.

I know this because he personally revealed himself to me. Yeah. So if it's exactly the same exactly the same then it would not be only that homosexuality isn't wrong. Okay it would also include personal revelation that is not publicly able to be tested.

Okay so then you have a problem there. Okay because you're making a claim the God of the Bible is you saying the same as the Christian God revealed something to me personally that is contrary to what he's commanded in scripture.

And how do we test this. Is it just based on your personal revelation that you're claiming. Because according to the scriptures God doesn't simply give personal revelation that is unable to be tested as a matter of fact one of the things that God commands us to do is to test all things.

So if this God is the same God of the Bible of Christian theism then we should be able to test the validity of your claim. And if it is simply a personal revelation then I'm unable to test the validity of your claim.

But I am able to test it in the sense that God has not revealed that he said one thing in his word but he's saying something different to you. So now we have to deal with with that. So the God of the Bible does not give personal revelation such that it is impossible to test.

That's why we're called to test all things. Right. Even in the book of Deuteronomy we're told the test to verify whether a prophet is a true prophet. You know there are ways to test and validate someone's teaching.

So so again that would not be that would not be a good counterpoint to what the transcendental arguments trying to show in that the Christian God is the only the only true God or Christian worldview. Okay hope that makes sense.

Talita thank you so much for that. That's a really creative and good question there. I love questions like that. Sometimes you got to think about them. Right kind of like okay that's actually I have to think about that one.

But but yeah that's my answer for that. So I hope that hope that makes sense all. Right. Let's get back to our slides here. So the transcendental argument is the way I present it. And so this is a deductive argument with what I call a transcendental premise a deductive argument with a transcendental premise.

So premise one. If knowledge is possible by the way notice the structure here. Right. For any X to be possible Y must be the case. And so look at the argument here. If knowledge is possible so the X in this case is knowledge.

I happen to choose knowledge. Okay you can put something else there if you want. But this is the way I'm presenting it. So if knowledge is possible the Christian worldview is true. Premise to knowledge is possible.

Conclusion. Therefore the Christian worldview is true. Okay now we want to make an important distinction between validity of an argument and the soundness of an argument. Validity of an argument and the soundness of an argument.

All right. Now when we speak of the validity of an argument we are speaking as to the structure of the argument. And so this argument that I've just given. If knowledge is possible the Christian worldview is true.

Knowledge is possible. Therefore the Christian worldview is true. That is logically valid. Okay. Doesn't matter if you don't agree with the conclusion or whatever. If premise one is true and if premise two is true then the conclusion does in fact follow.

Okay all right. Now when we speak of whether the premises are true then we're dealing with the soundness. Is the argument sound. Okay so this is a valid argument the soundness of which will depend upon our ability to defend the premises.

Okay so I want you to keep that in mind. Now one of the first criticisms that we get here so it that I've heard often when I present the argument in this in this form if knowledge is possible the Christian worldview is true.

Knowledge is possible therefore the Christian worldview is true. Someone will say well well wait a minute. Eli what happens if someone plugs in a different worldview. Okay I hear this often. Couldn't the Muslim make the same argument.

Couldn't the Mormon make the same argument. Couldn't the atheist make the same argument. And the answer is yes. Yes. They can make the same argument. Okay. That's not a deficiency in the argument. Okay.

Because there is a distinction between plugging in a worldview in the premise and actually defending the premise. Okay if I could point something out is that when the Christian worldview says when the presuppositional says that the Christian worldview is a necessary precondition for the possibility of knowledge or logic or intelligible experience this is not contrary to popular opinion.

This is not a bare authority claim. We are not simply making an authority claim. This is what God says. And that's it. You know let me see here. Okay all right. Talita says. I'm lying. It's not really a question.

I just wanted to say thank you for answering my question. Okay. Well you're welcome. You're welcome all right. So when we say that the Christian world is the necessary precondition for the possibility of knowledge or logic or science or whatever it is not simply a bare authority claim.

I want to kind of share a quote from a book here. It's gonna be I'm gonna quote here. Let me take this out of the way here. So this is you put this up here. So this is the book the impossibility of the contrary without God you can't prove anything by Greg Bonson.

Okay now this is not a book that Bonson himself wrote it with that title. This was put together by American Vision and it is a transcript of sorts edited of course to fit kind of a book format of a series of lectures that that Greg Bonson gave on the concept of the impossibility of the contrary.

And there's a section here that I want to read very briefly that will help understand what I mean when we say the Christian presuppositional argumentation is not making a bare authority claim. So here's what Bonson says on let's see.

You could see that there on page 152. Okay he says here. And I quote when we do worldview apologetics. Right. And that's what presuppositional apologetics is it's a worldview apologetic because we're defending the Christian worldview.

Right when it when we do worldview apologetics we do not simply look at bare or formal authority claims. Okay this should already cast aside the often repeated accusation. Well if you think Christianity is true saying so doesn't make it so that doesn't phase the presuppositional list because that's not what the presuppositional list is saying.

Okay perhaps some presuppositional lists some unnamed random presuppositional is online somewhere or like on discord or clubhouse might have made those assertions. Right. Well we want to make a distinction between presuppositional ism and the transcendental argument.

Right. And particular so-called presuppositional is who may or may not have a grasp on the nature of the presuppositional claim. Is that fair. I think that's fair. Right. So it's not simply you know a bare authority claim.

So we have Bonson himself saying here when we do worldview apologetics we do not simply look at bare or formal authority claims. Ready check this out. We compare the actual content of our worldview with the actual content of the worldview presented by and in the context here our Muslim friends.

Okay so if it's a Muslim that's saying you know what I don't know Islam's not the necessary you compare the content of the worldview. So it is not simply an authority claim. It is an authority claim to be sure we're asserting it on God's authority.

But it's not a bare or mere authority claim. Okay that's so important even if you disagree with presuppositional argumentation in the transcendental argument I think it's important to recognize that. Okay so when we say for example Eli is it not the case.

Is it not the case that you can plug any worldview in that syllogism. Yes you can. And it would be valid. And can I give an example here on the bottom it says here if knowledge is possible the Islamic worldview is true knowledge is possible.

Therefore the Islamic worldview is true. That is a valid argument. The challenge at this point will be whether it is sound in other words as Professor James Anderson of Reformed Theological Seminary once said when talking about transcendental arguments I think it was a when he was on my show some some years back he says can the worldview pay the bills on the claim.

Okay so you can insert any worldview like but can the worldview pay the bills. The Christian will say if knowledge is possible the Christian worldview is true the Christian will argue not merely assert that the Christian worldview can in fact pay the bills on that claim.

Okay and then of course we're gonna have to go into the details of what that looks like. Okay so the argument here in this deductive form. Okay yes it can be valid and you could plug in any worldview you'd like.

But the question is can the worldview pay the bills. Okay so that's that's a very important point to remember all. Right. So let's continue on here. So now this is super important actually let me go back here this is super important.

Okay let's see here let me see a comment here. Knowledge would not be possible because one of the premises. Okay so remember I said at the beginning it is very important to define our terms. Okay so important.

Defining Terms: Knowledge, Christian Worldview, and the Transcendental Premise

Okay so now there are some ambiguities in this argument as it stands and I think it's going to be important for folks to who are going to use argument argumentation along these lines. Okay if knowledge is possible the Christian worldviews true.

Well anyone who is familiar with analytic philosophy and the great emphasis that they put upon the precision of definitions you will learn very quickly. Okay that the word knowledge is highly debated.

Okay what do we mean by knowledge. Okay for example are we talking about the tripartite definition a justified true belief. Or are we talking about the discussions on warranted belief like what constitutes knowledge.

And so you're going to have to precisely define what you mean by knowledge. All. Right. And then of course you get into the issue of what constitutes the Christian worldview. Isn't that right. But what flavor of Christianity are you talking here.

So you look at the next slide here the Christian worldview. Many have used it in various ways. For example the Roman Catholic will tell you that he or she has a Christian worldview. The Eastern Orthodox.

That's what it stands there. If you can't see the EO Eastern Orthodox will say yes the Eastern Orthodox have a Christian worldview. Generally speaking Protestants will say we have a Christian worldview.

You kind of get narrowed down people within the reformed tradition. Yes we have a Christian worldview. And of course you know you have the people who are reformed and identify as you know Calvinistic and whatever.

That isn't what. Whatever is entailed by that. Okay now what's important here when we think in terms of the context of the presuppositional apologetical tradition and the utilization of transcendental reasoning in Vantill it is very clear that for Vantill the Christian worldview was equivalent to the reformed faith as he sought within the Calvinistic lines and more specifically within the Presbyterian stream of reformed thought.

Okay and so when you're using the transcendental argument and this particular form and you're arguing generally speaking on the Christian worldview you're gonna have to specify. Right. Because the different flavors of what goes by the name of Christianity are not all created equal.

There are similarities. And I would argue that there are some within the reform camp that can even though they differ can consistently utilize a presuppositional approach and transcendental argumentation and things like that.

But Greg Bonson pointed out something very interesting I thought was was funny. Someone asked him a question about Baptists and Presbyterians and he says that you know there are $5 churches and there are $100 churches.

Okay both of the churches are dollars. Okay but some churches are more dollars than others. So you have higher value. Are your value churches. And he would argue the higher value ones are the ones that are more in line with you know biblical truth.

Right. This of course he saw his own position as as a Presbyterian and the distinctives that he held to be closer to the truth. But when we speak of the and you were using this argument you need to express what you mean by that.

Okay now there is a broader discussion as to whether someone that is not from a reformed tradition Calvinistic has a particular view of the doctrine of God and Revelation and things like that whether or not a non-reformed Calvinistic sort of person could consistently use a presuppositional approach.

That is a question. Van Til definitely thought that it was not possible to do so consistently. You do have people who will use a presuppositional approach transcendental argumentation who are clearly not within the tradition someone who comes to mind Jay Dyer.

Jay Dyer who's a Eastern Orthodox person on YouTube and he often argues transcendentally and things like that. And it gets really when when you get into the ins and the outs of whether one is using the method consistently you get very deep into issues of the doctrine of God and whether the tradition is holding to a consistent coherent doctrine of God that is grounded in Revelation.

It gets very technical. So I'm not going to unpack that now but I think it is an important question to to think about when you are kind of exploring issues of consistency with respect to the theology you hold and the apologetic methodology that you'll as you know and I'm sure folks who follow dr. James White and are familiar with Alpha and Omega and of course Greg Bonson and Van Til you will hear over and over again okay that our apologetic flows from our theology.

So our apologetic must be consistent with our theology. All right. As the saying goes theology matters. Okay. So when we talk about Christian worldview when we talk about terms like knowledge a precising definition will be required.

A precising definition is a definition that helps clarify an ambiguous term or phrase. Okay and so when someone says hey when you use that phrase Christian world what do you mean by that we need to offer a precising definition.

When you say hey you're talking about knowledge what do you mean by that you offer a precising definition. Okay and so it's very important to narrow down the terminology and I think that's important in terms of communication and to sharpen various aspects of your argumentation.

Okay all right. Whoo let's see let me see the comments here. There are no new comments. I mean no new questions. Okay. Well let's continue on. Okay so the transcendental premise. Okay when we speak of the transcendental premise we are speaking of the premise that carries the weight of the argument.

Okay. And that of course is going to be premise one. Okay if knowledge is possible the Christian worldview is true. Premise one is the transcendental premise. Because the premise asserts that something is the necessary precondition for the possibility of something else.

Okay where we had the you know for X to be the case Y must be the case from thing we did at the beginning. So premise one is going to carry the weight of the argumentation. All right. Now of course if someone is going to challenge definitions that are present in another premise then of course you're gonna have to narrow that down and discuss that.

But for the most part the premise one is going to be where all of the action is. Okay. So that's what we mean by transcendental premise. Okay hope that hope that makes sense. All right. So defending the transcendental premise all right.

This is important. Okay. So there here's our premise. If knowledge is possible the Christian worldview is true knowledge is possible. Therefore the Christian worldview is true. Now someone might ask well what argument is there for premise one.

Okay now you want to be careful here. Okay in order to defend premise one you don't necessarily need to construct another deductive argument. Okay. And someone's like well what's your argument for that.

Then you go kind of an infinite regress of trying to provide justification for premise one. Okay now you have to understand something that premise one is a premise but it actually is a presupposition of the Christian worldview.

And when I say Christian worldview I will I would agree with van till. Okay that given the reformed understanding of God and epistemological considerations and the nature of man and all sorts of things I would argue that according to the reformed tradition this is a presupposition of the Christian worldview that if knowledge is possible yes God is in fact the foundation for knowledge.

God is a God of truth. God as the original creates everything and imbues everything with the meaning and definitions that they have. Right. A cow for example is a cow and a cow is what God wanted a cow to be.

So the definition of a cow is going to be correct in as much as it agrees with God's definition as the creator and definer of the cow. Does that make sense. Okay. I don't know why I use the example account but hopefully that makes sense.

Okay. So premise one okay does not require an infinite construction of other deductive arguments and things like that we are presupposition lists. Okay and so it is a premise but it's also a presupposition.