Was Jesus a Presupper?

Presuppositionalism as a Christian Worldview System

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today we're going to be talking about presuppositionalism, the transcendental argument, and we're going to be exploring the interesting question of whether Jesus was a presuppositionalist.

So that's what we're going to be covering in this podcast episode. I just want to give folks a heads up. The podcast episode that you are about to listen to is not available on the YouTube channel, so I'm going to be doing some more videos, but I'm also going to be making exclusively Revealed Apologetics podcast material, so be sure to check out both the YouTube channel and the upcoming podcast as they are released.

I cannot predict when various podcast episodes are released, as I kind of do them randomly as I catch the time, but I hope that this episode is going to prove useful, and most of my episodes will not have long-winded introductions like this one does.

I'll try to kind of jump into the topic, but there you go. So presuppositionalism, I want to open up this particular episode with a quote, and I want you to think about the quote. I'm going to read it slowly, okay?

Ready? Here's the quote. When one gives up Christian belief, one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality. Christianity is a system, a consistently thought-out and complete view of things.

If one breaks out of it a fundamental idea, the belief in God, one thereby breaks the whole thing to pieces. One has nothing of any consequence left in one's hand. Christian morality is a command. Its origin is transcendental.

It possesses truth only if God is truth. It stands or falls with belief in God. And if you're guessing that the source of this quote is Cornelius Van Til or Greg Bonson or someone else, you'd be mistaken.

This is actually Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche, the nihilist, right? This is a quote. This quote is found in Cornelius Plantinga Jr.'s Engage in God's World, A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living, and that's on page 74 of that source.

So interestingly enough, you have an unbeliever like Friedrich Nietzsche understanding the true aspect of the Christian worldview is that it is a system, right? And when we're doing presuppositional apologetics, we often place a great emphasis upon the fact that we are defending the Christian worldview system.

This is also wrapped up in Cornelius Van Til's definition of apologetics. He defines apologetics in his book, Christian Apologetics, that apologetics is the vindication of the Christian system, the Christian worldview, over against the non-Christian worldview.

And the reason why I appreciate Van Til's definition is that he acknowledges that the nature of the dispute between the believer and unbeliever is not a tit-for-tat disagreement over facts, but rather it is a disagreement at a fundamental level of worldview perspectives, the framework with which the facts are interpreted.

Defining Presuppositionalism and the Transcendental Argument

So let's begin by defining terms, and of course this is going to be kind of old hat for folks who have listened to the channel, but I'm going to define my terms here at the beginning as I define for us presuppositionalism, and then we're going to kind of outflow from that into a discussion of the transcendental argument, and then explore the interesting question of whether Jesus was a presuppositionalist.

So here you go. What is presuppositionalism? Presuppositionalism, this is my favorite definition taken from Stephen D. West's book Resurrection, Scripture, and Reformed Apologetics, a Test for Consistency in Theology and Apologetics, and this is the Kindle version, location 3496 if you're interested and you have the digital copy.

But I highly recommend this book. It's available on Kindle. You can get it on Amazon for a reasonable price. But here is how Stephen D. West defines presuppositionalism. Quote, presuppositionalism is a school of thought that attempts to bring all human thinking into subjection to the authority of the Word of God.

Methodologically, presuppositional apologetics endeavors to achieve this goal by demonstrating that all human thought that does not submit to the Word of God is fallacious and untrustworthy. I want to highlight that first aspect of the definition, that presuppositionalism is a school of thought that attempts to bring all human thinking into subjection to the authority of the Word of God.

For the presuppositionalists, this includes the thinking of the unbeliever as well. We seek to argue that unless the unbeliever submits his thinking to the Word of God, he loses a foundation for human intelligibility, logic, uniformity of nature, these sorts of things.

And so that is presuppositionalism in a nutshell. I think it's beautifully summarized by Stephen D. West in his book there, Resurrection Scripture and Reformed Apologetics. Now, what about the transcendental argument for God's existence, or otherwise known popularly as TAG?

This is the centerpiece of a presuppositional approach. And a transcendental argument, it's important to understand what a transcendental argument is. So if you're not familiar with the history of philosophy, it is not my goal here to get into the history of philosophy and the history of thought regarding transcendental arguments.

But what I'd like to do here is to just simply define what a transcendental argument is in general, and then differentiate in general transcendental arguments, differentiate that from a presuppositional transcendental argument for the existence of God.

So a transcendental argument in general takes the following form. X, X standing for some proposition or some truth or whatever, X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y, where then, given that Y is the case, it logically follows that X must be the case too.

In other words, X is a necessary precondition for the possibility of fill in the blank. So we can say, let's see here, logic is a necessary precondition for the possibility of argument. If logic isn't a thing, then argument wouldn't be a thing, since argument, argumentation, necessarily presupposes logical categories.

So a transcendental argument seeks to argue for the necessary preconditions, what must be the case in order for something else to be the case. And so that is basic form. Basically, the definition I just gave here, X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y, where then, given that Y is the case, it logically follows that X must be the case too.

That's taken straight out of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There's nothing specifically presuppositional about this. Transcendental arguments is a thing, which is very interesting, because when Christians give transcendental arguments, they're often accused of having this weird argument that, you know, it's invented by presuppositionalists.

But really, transcendental arguments has a long, rich history throughout the course of Western philosophy. All right. Now, it is tempting to go into some of the history there. It is actually very interesting, but I'm not going to do that.

The Transcendental Argument for God's Existence

So what about the transcendental argument for God's existence? Okay. Now, the transcendental argument or tag, transcendental argument for God's existence, often takes various forms. I like, personally, I like to put it in a deductive form, but it doesn't have to be.

But a deductive transcendental argument will be a basic deductive argument with premise, premise, conclusion. But of course, one of those premises being the transcendental premise, the premise that will carry all of the weight and will require one to defend transcendentally.

Okay. So here is a deductive transcendental argument. Premise one, if intelligible experience is possible, the triune God of Christianity exists. Intelligible experience is possible. That's premise two.

Therefore, the triune God of Christianity exists. I'll walk through that again. If intelligible experience is possible, the triune God of Christianity exists. Intelligible experience is possible. Therefore, the triune God of Christianity exists.

So you notice the first premise is the transcendental premise, which we prove by a demonstration of the impossibility of the contrary. Okay. That's hashed out by arguing along these lines. Right. So first premise, if intelligible experience is possible, the triune God of Christianity exists.

Well, how do we demonstrate that? Assume the opposite. And in so doing, the goal here is to show that any worldview that does not presuppose the triune God of Christianity will actually make intelligible experience impossible.

And that is demonstrated through an internal critique of the particular worldview in question. Okay. But it also will be defended by a positive assertion and explanation of what it would be defended in a positive sense in showing that given the truth of the Christian worldview and the triune God of Christianity.

Right. Intelligible experience is actually possible and in fact, the case. Okay. And that's the way you would go about it. And of course, there would be more details in there. But that's generally speaking how one would prove the first premise.

Okay. So the first premise is the transcendental premise, which is proven by a demonstration of the impossibility of the contrary. And the second premise must obtain. Otherwise, the opponent is going to be reduced to absurdity.

For example, if he asserts that your opponent asserts that intelligible experience is not possible, then, of course, that doesn't make sense since his assertion that intelligible experience is impossible actually presupposes that intelligible experience is possible because he is speaking in a complete sentence.

Right. That actually makes sense. Right. So the fact that he's speaking and having rational discourse with you would actually refute the claim that intelligible experience is not possible. Okay. So the second premise is a given unless your opponent wants to challenge what it means for an experience to be intelligible.

And of course, someone may do that, and you'd have to take your opponents on a case-by-case basis. I haven't run into anyone who's denied the intelligibility of human experience, but I suppose you might run into someone who does.

And so, again, you're going to have to ask questions and kind of dig a little into that. All right. So let's talk a little more, though, about the defense of the first premise. If intelligible experience is possible, the triune God of Christianity exists.

If intelligible experience is possible, the triune God of Christianity exists. The demonstration of this premise, as I said, is established in two steps. Okay? Number one, we provide a positive case that the Christian worldview does, in fact, provide the conditions necessary for intelligible experience.

Okay? This point here, if successful, actually demonstrates—this is important—the truth and transcendental necessity of the Christian worldview for the following reasons. I'll unpack this here. I'm going to say this again.

Okay? So we demonstrate the first premise in two steps. Step one, provide a positive case that the Christian worldview does, in fact, provide the conditions necessary for intelligible experience, knowledge, logic, these sorts of things.

And if this point is successfully demonstrated, the truth and transcendental necessity of the Christian worldview is established for the following reasons. Okay? Reason number one, if the Christian worldview provides the necessary precondition for intelligible experience, as expressed in our positive case, then it follows that it must be the only position that can do so because you can only have one necessary or ultimate transcendental foundation.

It's just the nature of an ultimate. Why? Well, if there are two, for example, necessary preconditions that contradict one another, then definitionally they're not necessary. There would have to be some preconditions back of both of them to explain their relationship.

If there are two necessary transcendental preconditions that are one and the same, then it's just the same position with linguistic variation. Okay? You're just talking about the same thing at that moment.

So for purpose of specific illustration of the impossibility of the contrary, we then provide internal critiques of the competing worldview perspective. I notice it is not required here, this is important, to inductively disprove all worldview options as the exclusive truth of the Christian worldview was demonstrated via our positive presentation.

Right? So all we need to do at this point is provide an internal critique of the opposition and welcome the attempted internal critiques of the Christian worldview, as this is required if the opponent believes that the positive case for the Christian worldview being a necessary transcendental precondition for intelligible experience is insufficient and false.

The opponent doesn't get to simply say, well, you didn't provide your case, so, you know, they don't get to say that. Right? To counter the Christian positive case, the opponent must provide his counter, namely, present a worldview that provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience.

That's not Christianity. Okay? All right. Now, I hope that makes sense in terms of understanding the transcendental argument for the existence of God. Again, it's often presented in different ways. That's how I like to present it.

I think putting it in a deductive form is helpful, but there are folks who dispute whether it should be in that form or not. This has proven helpful to me in explaining it, and so I hope folks who are listening can follow along.

All right? All right. Well, presuppositionalism and TAG are separate. We'll often hear this. They're separate things. I don't think so. I think presuppositionalism as a methodology is based upon what we would call a transcendental principle.

Okay? We reason transcendentally to illustrate the overall principle. Okay? The fact that someone focuses their apologetic on the opponent's presuppositions is not what makes one a presuppositionalist.

Right? A classicalist or an evidentialist can point out the presuppositional bias, for example, in an opponent's perspective while not using presuppositionalism as a methodology. There's a difference there.

And likewise, a presuppositionalist can use evidences without being committed to evidentialism as a methodology. The transcendental argument for God's existence is a specific argument which is a manifestation of the overall transcendental principle upon which presuppositionalism, broadly speaking, is based.

Okay? For example, the moral argument. The moral argument is a specific kind of transcendental argument as we are arguing that God is the necessary precondition for objective moral values and duties. And this just is a specific application of the transcendental principle applied to a specific area, morality.

Okay? We technically can do this with any other field like science, induction, history, mathematics, logic, etc., to illustrate the main point that the triune God is necessary to make sense of these specific items.

But one could go the route of providing a more maybe a more robust and all-encompassing argument that instead of arguing that God is the necessary precondition for morality or logic or science or whatever, we can simply argue that the Christian God must be the necessary precondition for anything intelligible whatsoever.

So that's kind of providing a transcendental argument that provides the necessary precondition for all of those other transcendental categories. Okay? All right. So I hope I haven't lost anyone. If you're familiar with this stuff, hopefully you're catching on and this is helpful.

If not, no worries. But all right. So now here's a criticism I often get. The transcendental argument is not in the Bible, right? You guys are trying to be biblical, but you're using an argument that's just not scriptural.

Okay? Now, there are a couple of ways we could respond to this. If you mean, for example, there is not a Bible verse that lays out a formal argument for tag. Now, of course, no presuppositionalist is necessarily claiming that, right?

I would say that tag or transcendental argument for God's existence is derived from biblical principles and theological teaching. Okay? So hear me out. We can take, for instance, the idea of a completely sovereign God and draw implications from a biblical doctrine of God and use this as a premise of an argument or something to that effect.

And we can derive the notion of, and this is Van Til's emphasis here, okay? We can derive the notion of the creator-creature distinction from scripture and that there are apologetic applications that can be made with respect to the nature of knowledge.

You know, there are different categories of knowledge, ectypal knowledge, archetypal knowledge, knowledge of man, knowledge of God, these sorts of things. God as the creator of the facts, we could argue, entails that a correct interpretation of those facts require that our interpretation matches his.

These are all presuppositional principles and are used within the context of our transcendental argument. Biblical conceptions of the authority of God as being ultimate, right? For example, we have God swearing by himself to Abraham because there was none higher to swear by.

Again, that concept of ultimate authority is right there in scripture. And of course, you have the categories of total depravity and the noetic effects of sin. The effects of sin upon the mind of man would give us, by implication, this concept of there being no neutrality.

There is no neutrality, right? The natural man cannot receive the things of God. He is at enmity with God. So no man approaches the facts neutrally, right? Man, apart from a generation, is running away from God.

Man distorts God's revelation, okay? And how do we argue for God such that man is without excuse? Well, again, man is without excuse, right? So we have this concept in scripture, right? But tag, since it leaves no escape for the unbeliever, is right along those lines that if tag is a legitimate argument, which I think it is, it leaves man without excuse because it literally shows that any other position other than the Christian one is false, okay?

So our argument leaves the natural man without excuse, which is, again, along those biblical categories that he is without excuse. He's without any excuse, even logical and argumentative excuse, all right?

He can't have an excuse for denying the God whose revelation imposes itself upon man, okay? Sola Scriptura, okay? I think presuppositionalism and transcendental principle flow from this principle, scripture, as our sole infallible authority.

There is nothing higher. The reasoning of the natural man is foolish, okay? The Bible tells us the nature of the natural man's reasoning, okay? Again, these are categories that the presuppositionalists use and employs within that context of the transcendental principle.

The treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ. Ideas which inform a believer's epistemology, isn't that right? The treasures of wisdom and knowledge, that has huge epistemological implications.

The Bible teaches how we should reason, right? The beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. Now, we're not to think after the patterns and principles of this world, scripture tells us. Our philosophy must be based upon Christ.

So the transcendental argument for God's existence is a manifestation of these principles specifically applied in argumentative form. And because we're arguing that God is the necessary precondition for anything to be intelligible, it follows that we can speak of anything as illustrations of this truth.

You see this in Greg Bonson's debate with Gordon Stein, where he places a great emphasis upon the God of Christianity being necessary for logic. But then when he debates, when Dr. Bonson debated Edward Tabash, who was another atheist, he still used a transcendental argument, but his emphasis was not so much on logic, but on the inductive principle, this idea of the uniformity of nature.

And so he took two different things, applied a transcendental principle to them, and argued along those lines. Okay? So there you go. I think these are important points to keep in mind, and I hope that this is clarifying some things for folks.

Why the Transcendental Argument Is Not Too Complicated

Now, there's another criticism of the transcendental argument for God's existence. I often hear that it's too complicated. It's a complicated argument, right? It's too abstract. Well, I think it can be.

It can be complicated, right, depending upon the nature of the thing under discussion, right? But I think that's the case with any argument, right? It's like, well, I'm going to stick with the cosmological argument because that's easier to follow, right?

Well, I mean, the cosmological argument deals with things like potential infinites and actual infinites and modern defenses of certain premises. I deal with quantum physics and fine-tuning and these sorts of things.

It can be presented quite simply, I think, Tag can. And the cosmological argument, I suppose, right? It can be presented quite simply within the context of any conversation, right? For example, God in his revelation helps me make sense out of the world we live in.

And then I could ask the unbeliever, how do you make sense of the world without God? And then we listen to the response and we engage in critique and conversation, right? So there you go. If I were to say, God in his revelation helps me make sense out of the world we live in.

How do you make sense out of the world without God? That is a very colloquial, simple presentation of a presuppositional argument, right? And then it initiates a conversation. You listen to what the unbeliever says and you can critique.

And then, well, the unbeliever, what about the world? How does God explain these things? And then you offer your response. It's very simple. Now, again, it says, well, what if he says this? Well, then the more specific you want to get, then the more technical we can get, right?

So it can be simple, but it doesn't have to be. And I don't think that's an issue of the transcendental argument. I think any argument, you could have simple applications of those arguments and then you could have more sophisticated versions of it.

All right? So is it complicated? Well, complicated can be subjective, right? And I think different ways that we apply the argument depends the context in which we're using it. So that's how I would respond to the tag is too complicated objection, okay?

Was Jesus a Presuppositionalist?

Now, let's take a look at the question of whether Jesus was a presuppositionalist. And this gets into some interesting areas. I remember hearing a podcast. I don't know if it was a podcast or an episode on a YouTube channel or something, where they asked the question of whether Augustine was a Calvinist, okay?

Now, we're not going to be talking about Calvinism here, but I do intend to do a nice, chunky Calvinism episode on the podcast, available only on the podcast, not on the YouTube channel. But I plan on doing that in the future, but I don't want to get into those issues now.

But just an example, was Augustine a Calvinist? Again, that's a silly question since Calvin comes after Augustine. But you get the point. What Calvin taught were the seeds of that existing within the thought of Augustine, right?

That's kind of along the lines of the question being asked. And I say, is Jesus a presuppositionalist? I can say yes, but that doesn't mean that Jesus, along with reading the Torah and the prophets, that he also had his Van Til collection next to him, right?

That's not what I'm saying, right? So let's take a look at the sorts of things that Jesus did use that are within the context of apologetics. Because if apologetics is always being ready to give a reason for the hope that's in you, 1 Peter 3 .15, we can actually see in Scripture instances where Jesus gives a reason for the hope that's in him, okay?

And so, for example, the apologetic of Jesus, he used testimony. The testimony of Scripture, the testimony of others. He used miracles. He used, of course, his resurrection, right? He used parables to make apologetic points.

He used discourse, the way he taught. Prophecy, okay? Prophecy is an evidence, right? And he used argumentation. He argued with people. He reasoned with people. And, of course, he used his, what some people call incarnational apologetics.

He used his very life as an apologetic. In other words, how he lived was part of his defense, okay? Now, all of these observations were helpfully collected in Norman Geisler, not a presuppositionalist, in Norman Geisler's book, The Apologetic of Jesus.

Now, I agree that Geisler has highlighted accurate apologetic principles from the life and ministry of Jesus, okay? Right? And I'm thankful for that. I love Norman Geisler. Again, I have a different apologetic method than he does, but he has a lot of helpful books out there that I think a presuppositionalist will do well to read through and gather the information therein.

But I agree that he has highlighted accurate apologetic principles from the life and ministry of Jesus. But I disagree with his conclusions, that they reflect a more evidential or classical thrust, okay?

Jesus, Scripture, and the Transcendental Thrust of His Teaching

So if we were to ask the question, for example, was Jesus a presuppositionalist? Did he use tag, okay? Well, if I can be so straightforward, yes, I think Jesus was a presuppositionalist, okay? Just hear me out, right?

So Jesus believed in the creator-creature distinction, which was actually Van Til's metaphysical starting point. The bedrock of Van Til's metaphysics was the creator-creature distinction. Jesus believed that God, his Father, and, of course, we've got the Trinity there, right?

Jesus believed that God created the world. Therefore, the world is properly interpreted in light of how God interprets his own creation, right? Every fact has its meaning as it relates to God and his purposes.

Jesus believed that. Jesus believed that God in his revelation is the only true source of knowledge. Jesus, as God, believed that all men know God and suppress the truth, okay? How do I know Jesus believed that?

Because Jesus inspired the scriptures, which that is explicitly told to us in Romans 1, okay? Jesus believed that no one is neutral. Jesus says, either you're with me or you're against me. He believed in the absolute authority of scripture and consistently reasoned in a fashion consistent with that commitment.

That's a very important point. I think one of the great things that Norman Geisler points out, especially because if you know anything about Norman Geisler, he was a strong defender of biblical inerrancy.

I think he does a great job or he did a great job in giving us the view of scripture that Jesus had, okay? So Jesus believed in the absolute authority of scripture, and I think he consistently reasoned in a fashion consistent with that very commitment.

Jesus held a biblical worldview. So therefore, any appeals to Jesus using evidences, arguments, reasoning, prophecy, or whatever is not a counterpoint to the fact that Jesus was a presuppositionalist, okay?

You can't counter the claim Jesus was a presuppositionalist by pointing out that he also used evidences, right? As I would say that he never used any of these forms of apologetic elements while assuming neutrality, right?

You're either with me or against me. Jesus wasn't neutral, and he didn't present his arguments and his teachings in a neutral way. He never used any of these forms of apologetic elements while assuming the autonomy of man.

Jesus doesn't assume that man is autonomous from God. He's a law unto himself. He never used any of these apologetic elements while allowing for the possible falsity of God's word, right? He didn't argue for, well, God's word might not be true, but it's very plausible that it is true, or it's the most reasonable.

Jesus didn't argue like that. Everything he used as evidence was couched within the context of the worldview of biblical revelation. All that Jesus uses in argument, right, in his discussions with the religious leaders has a transcendental thrust to it when taken within the context of his broader worldview commitments.

Jesus never uses the transcendental argument in the formal sense, but then again, he never uses the cosmological argument or the teleological argument or the moral argument in the formal sense in which those terms are—in which they're normally taken, right?

Now, I'm not saying there's anything against—just because God—Jesus didn't use a specific argument doesn't mean that argument is off limits to us. That's not what I'm saying. But all I'm saying is that we can see a transcendental thrust to the teachings of Jesus and Scripture, that we can confidently say that Jesus was a presuppositionalist in the sense that I've just expressed.