Do Presuppers Conflate Ontology & Epistemology?

The Objection That Presuppositionalism Conflates Ontology and Epistemology

All right, all right. My next question here, now you've interacted with Dr. Richard Howe. Okay, there's some stuff on YouTube where people can check that out. Very good discussion. I think it was yourself, Dr. Howe, Scott Oliphant.

Was there someone else on there? Frank Turek was moderator. Frank Turek, yeah, that's right. And I think he did a good job as a moderator too. I agree. Yeah, it was a really good event there and you can kind of see the comparison of the different apologetic methodologies and things like that.

So I wanna interact a little bit with something that Dr. Howe said in his criticism of presubpositional apologetics. Now, just as a disclaimer, Dr. Howe is a fine scholar. He's a gentleman. We just have methodological disagreements.

And so it's important to be able to talk about these things so we can help other folks out in working through these things themselves. So I'm gonna read a quote from Dr. Howe, which he highlights a common mistake he thinks presuppositionalists make, okay?

And here's what he says in an interview. And for folks who want to look this up, this is at the six minute and eight second mark in his interview with Cameron Bertuzzi on capturing Christianity. Okay, and here's what he says.

Quote, he says, this is what I think is the perennial mistake in all that I've read of all the presuppositionalists that I've read, including Bonson's material. When they define presuppositionalism, they say it this way.

The assumption of God is the precondition of knowledge. But when they try to explain what that means, what they end up defending is God is the precondition of knowledge. Okay, so you see the claim here is we say that the assumption of God is necessary, but when we hash that out, we're talking about, well, actually the existence of God is necessary.

You see the epistemological and ontological conflation there as he sees it. How would you respond to him if he were to bring this up to you in conversation?

Why the Presuppositional Response Requires God to Exist

I don't think he understands the method, frankly. And when I met Dr. Howie, he hit it off really well. He's a very likable guy. He's very witty and charming. I like the guy, but I don't think he understands the presuppositional method.

One, when we're talking about what we believe, that's epistemology, but unless that epistemology is grounded in a metaphysical truth, it's useless. So unless God really is the way he claims that he is, unless God really exists in reality, that's a metaphysical claim, then we couldn't justify anything.

That's an epistemological claim. It's ironic because he thinks that those two are conflated by presuppositionalists, that we conflate metaphysics or ontology with epistemology. But I don't think he recognizes that those two, although they're asking different questions, they're not totally independent of each other.

Your epistemology cannot be completely independent of your metaphysics. And I'm a little disappointed to hear him still making that claim because that was one of the things, we actually did a written debate in addition to our verbal debate.

And that's actually recorded in the journal that they do there at Southern Evangelical Seminary. The journal of, what is it? The Journal of Christian Apologetics Journal, volume 11, number two, it's the 2013 issue.

We did a written exchange. We were back there, I thought it was just an online thing. Oh, cool.

It's online too. And I think, in fact, Dr. Howell posted the online version on his website, which I guess he works for the university. So I guess that's okay. But you can read it there. And that's one of the things I clarified.

I said, your epistemology and your metaphysics or ontology, they're not, they're connected. Epistemology, how do we know what we know? What is true? Metaphysics, what kind of things exist? What is the nature of the universe?

Not totally independent. And I gave an example, and I can't remember if this is the example I gave, but one example would be, suppose my epistemology is that laws of logic are a very good tool for discerning truth and error.

And that is part of my epistemology. It's not all of it, but it's part of it. Now, that would be inconsistent if my metaphysics was the view that only material things exist. Because if only material things exist, laws of logic can't, because they're not material.

You can't pull a law of logic out of the refrigerator or accidentally swallow one, they're non-material. And so that metaphysics is incompatible with that epistemology. So what we try to do as presuppositionalists is point out that the metaphysical reality of God is necessary in order for us to justify our truth claims, which is an epistemological issue.

And so, now maybe we can say it a little better. Maybe he's got a legitimate criticism about the way that we say it. But the fact is, we're arguing for a metaphysical reality that is necessary in order for any epistemology to make any sense whatsoever.

And for us to justify any epistemological claim, God must metaphysically exist. In reading some of Hal's comments, it seems like he's confusing that. It seems like he's confusing the transcendental argument with more of a causation argument, that God is necessary cause of the universe.

But we're not talking about causation. That's different. We're talking about justification, which is providing a reason for the beliefs that we have, and what is the basis for that reason, and so on. Unless God, as revealed in scripture, is the base of that, we couldn't have knowledge of anything.

So our epistemology would collapse without the metaphysical reality described in the Bible.

Why Presuppositionalism Says We Must Assume God and That God Must Exist

Now, would you say, so this issue of, is it that we must assume God, or is it the case that God must exist? Would you say that we both have to assume him, and it has to be the case that he exists? Would you say it's both?

Absolutely, it is both. God must exist, and we must presuppose that he exists in order for us to have knowledge of anything. So both of those are true, and they go together. Because if you presuppose something that doesn't exist, then your epistemology is worthless, because it's based on fiction rather than reality.

So unless God is metaphysically real, our epistemological claim that he justifies everything would be useless.

And that's related to the knowledge of God, of the unbeliever, so that he assumes God, while at the same time, God actually existing. He assumes God because he's made in the image of God and has an innate knowledge of God.

He can't help but to think in those categories.

The Image of God, Suppression of Truth, and Romans 1

That's right. God has hardwired all human beings to know that he exists, and to, such that when we look out into creation, we immediately recognize it as the handiwork of God. There's not even a, there's not a processing there.

We recognize it as God's handiwork, it's what Romans 1 tells us, such that there's no excuse for denying God's existence. God's made it obvious to us, he's hardwired us that way, so that we all have knowledge of him, but people work very hard to suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness.

They know God, they claim they don't know God, and they work very hard to convince others and themselves that they don't know God.