Rebutting Brunton on Presup (Part 2)

Revealed Apologetics

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics, I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today

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I'm going to be doing a part two of interacting with Jacob Brunton, who is an individual that I responded to in I think maybe two videos ago, where he posted something on Twitter, or X or however you'd like to refer to it, listing reasons why he thought presuppositional apologetics is immoral, and so I provided a point by point response to what he shared there, and so folks can check that out,

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I will leave a link to that video in the description to this video, and I guess

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Jacob saw that and offered a brief response to that interaction that I offered with his points.

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Now I don't want to draw this out, I'm not going to be doing videos and focusing on all of this, obviously those who don't hold to the presuppositional position, there's history in terms of debating these issues and things like that, and so my goal is not necessarily to convince

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Jacob to be a presuppositionalist, I mean I'd love for that to happen, that he's able to see that it is biblical, it is philosophically cogent, but my point here is to interact with his response to my points, and so what

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I'm going to do is I'm going to play the video that he recorded by way of response, and then

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I will also read some comments that he made on Twitter in his attempt to steel man the presuppositional position, and I think that's important, so what

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I'm going to do is play a video, then I'm going to also read a tweet, and then I'm going to interact with it by way of response.

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Now first, I know that when people argue over apologetic methodology there are all these turf wars and people who are like, you know, yay for my team, or no the other team, you know, boohoo, right?

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That's not my intention here, as a matter of fact, I have not interacted with Brunton in the past, although I have read some posts online with respect to some of his comments on presuppositionalism, and I think that he's way off, he doesn't understand it even though he probably thinks that he does.

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Be that as it may, his brief response that he offered was very respectful and I really much appreciate that, and so my response here is offered in the same spirit,

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I don't mean to be disrespectful to him, and I don't mean to treat this topic in a cavalier way, my goal here as a teacher is to provide a clear response so that folks who are interested in this topic and are looking for clarification can have that, so that is my goal with this here.

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Alright, so once again, gonna play the video, it's just, I think like 2 minutes and 18 seconds long, and then

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I will read a tweet and then I will offer my interaction, okay? Here we go, there's

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Jacob Brunton there, we're gonna play that and begin now. I'm gonna do a quick video response,

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Eli I appreciate your podcasts, I think you're a smart guy, I'm gonna hate you a little bit here, it seems like I don't understand presuppositionalism accurately,

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I've heard that a lot, obviously, but it also seemed like you were saying that scroll doesn't make things accurate, and that's a little surprising, it kind of makes me wonder,

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I actually always wonder this, do you guys think that anyone who disagrees with presuppositionalism actually understands it?

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Is that even a possibility? You said it's a possibility a couple times in podcasts, but can you name anybody?

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Because in my experience, it seems like any disagreement is necessarily treated as a misunderstanding.

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And here's my challenge on that, let's get specific. Because I think if you understand this about the way

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I view presupp, you'll understand why I think it's so immoral, and everything that I said actually.

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So, this is my challenge to you, or to any presuppers out there. Can you define presupp in a way that is not classicalism, fundamentally, and that is not the theist, fundamentally?

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What I mean by that is, can you define presupp in a way, regarding epistemology, by the way,

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I don't care about politics, I'm talking about epistemology, where we start with our knowledge, does our knowledge start with God?

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Or does it start with logic, and reason? Logic, reason, and perception.

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Right? Does it start with logic, or with reason? Or does it start with God? One or the other.

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If you say it starts with logic, you're a classicalist. If you say it starts with God, you're a theist.

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I don't want to see any in between, but maybe you can do that. I'm going to read the tweet here.

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You can't really see it on my phone, but this is a little blurry there, I do apologize. But here is what

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Jacob says on Twitter. He says, I don't care about the methodology, I care about the epistemology.

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And so he says here, and this is key, my steel man of presupp epistemology is, epistemology and metaphysics collapses into each other at the foundation of knowledge such that we must switch back and forth between them.

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And then he goes on to say, well actually there's another discussion, he's interacting with someone there, so I'll leave that out there.

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So there are a couple of things. First, I don't know why he's surprised that I think that R .C.

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Sproul didn't understand presupp. Yes, that's right, he didn't understand it.

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Now obviously he understands it more than the average bear, right? I absolutely love

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R .C. Sproul, I think he was a brilliant thinker, and I've learned so much from him.

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But his criticisms of presuppositionalism just aren't good. Now they're not the run -of -the -mill, you know, basic surface -level online criticisms that you might get from like an atheist who's trying to critique presuppositionalism.

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Obviously R .C.'s much more sophisticated and nuanced than those. But ultimately, yes,

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I would say R .C. Sproul did not understand presuppositionalism sufficiently to properly represent it, and that fact is documented in the many responses that presuppositionalists have offered, and I think they're very sufficient responses, not only to R .C.'s

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points, but specifically in clarifying what we actually mean when we say certain things or use certain terms.

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So yes, his book, Classical Apologetics, that he wrote alongside with John Gerstner, it wasn't a good criticism of presuppositionalism.

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It just wasn't. Now it is possible that someone can disagree with presuppositionalism and accurately describe it.

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I mean, this isn't hard, right? There is a possibility to steelman a position that you do not hold to.

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For example, I have a good friend Braxton Hunter. He is the president of Trinity – oh,

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I always get the name of the school, Trinity something. It's Trinity something or other.

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If you're interested in Braxton Hunter, he's got a great YouTube channel called Trinity Radio that he co -hosts sometimes with Jonathan Pritchett, both of whom, by the way, are not presuppositionalists, but I've had so many good conversations with Braxton, and I think that if I were to ask him, can he repeat to me what he thinks

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I'm saying with respect to presuppositional methodology, I think he would be able to do so accurately. Now, of course, he disagrees with presuppositionalism, but I do think that he could accurately explain it and understand the categories of what

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I'm saying. For example, one important thing to keep in mind is that from a presuppositional perspective, and of course this was the position of Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bonson and others, that we believe and that we argue that the presuppositional approach is the apologetic that consistently flows from a reformed theology.

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And so we think that there is a necessary connection. I understand there are people who disagree with that, and those are worthy discussions to have.

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But there are people who reject presuppositionalism, can explain it accurately, but disagree because they also fundamentally disagree with the theology that undergirds it.

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And that would be the example with my friend Braxton Hunter. Dr. Hunter is not a

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Calvinist, he's a Molinist, and our theology has a direct impact on our apologetic.

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So I think he could summarize it quite well and understand where I'm coming from even though he disagrees, and there are others who can do this as well.

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Now, all that aside, I think the points that you bring up in your video kind of cover a wide range of topics that typically come up, which

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I think are based on just basic fundamental misunderstandings of what we're saying. Now, in defense of Jacob, perhaps the misunderstanding is due to presuppositionalists' inability to speak clearly or to clarify things.

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However, these things have been discussed for quite some time, and so I do think that if you do look hard enough, you can find answers to these questions, which

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I think you would still find sufficient as responses, even though you disagree with them. I do think that these points are adequately addressed.

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All of the points that you bring up are not like these, you know, and I'm not diminishing what you're saying, but they're not these great insights that no one's ever seen before.

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As a matter of fact, the questions and issues you bring up are addressed directly by Van Til and by Greg Bonson.

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So let's jump into this. I think a lot of the things that is often rooted in these discussions that is a cause for confusion is the old, you know, the confusion that apparently presuppositionalists make between ontology and epistemology.

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Now, here, I apologize if you're just listening in and you're not well -seasoned in these discussions.

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You might be lost here, but perhaps those who are more nuanced and advanced in terms of these sorts of discussions, this will be useful for you.

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So let's tackle the common accusation that Van Til and presuppositionalism confuses ontology with epistemology.

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And so Jacob claims that presuppositionalism collapses—he uses the word, right—collapses metaphysics, what is real, and epistemology, how we know what's real or how we know what we know.

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They collapse into each other and that we have to constantly switch back and forth between them. Now, I want to be clear, that's actually not an accurate representation of presuppositionalism.

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Cornelius Van Til didn't teach that. Greg Bontz didn't teach that. Others didn't teach that, nor is that a logical entailment of the presuppositional perspective.

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Van Til, for example, didn't teach that epistemology and metaphysics collapse into one another. Instead, he taught that epistemology and metaphysics are actually—not ultimately—intimately related.

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You can't separate them because what's real, our metaphysical reality, determines what we can know, our epistemology.

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They're connected because all knowledge is grounded in God. And so Van Til didn't see this as a back -and -forth process.

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Instead, it's a unified perspective where epistemology depends on metaphysics, specifically the metaphysical reality of God.

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Here's how Van Til himself put it, and this is taken from a survey of Christian epistemology, page 9.

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Van Til says, quote, So Van Til is saying that epistemology, our way of knowing, follows from metaphysics.

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Now, when I say follow, I don't mean chronologically follow. That's an important thing to keep in mind, and I'll address that in just a bit.

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Now, since God is the creator of all things, the fact that he exists gives meaning to our knowledge.

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We're not flipping between them. They operate simultaneously, and I think that's where your confusion is coming from.

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So when Jacob sets up a false dichotomy—and it is a false dichotomy—do you start with God or do you start with logic?

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That is a false dichotomy, and we reject that false dichotomy. He's missing the point here. In presuppositionalism, we start both simultaneously.

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We start with God as our ultimate reference point, but we also recognize that our reasoning is proximate and dependent upon God.

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This is not some unique idiosyncratic view. This is stated in Bonson and Van Til.

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Now, when Jacob also tries to claim that if we start with God, that's fideism, or if we start with logic, that's classicalism, again, that is a false dichotomy.

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We don't choose between starting with God and starting with logic. In fact, we can't separate the two.

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Why? Because the laws of logic themselves are grounded in God's nature, so we start with both simultaneously, and that's exactly the presuppositional position.

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God is our ultimate starting point, but that doesn't mean we throw out logic or reason or we disdain reason or anything along those lines.

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Instead, logic and reason only make sense because of God. Here's how Greg Bonson put it in his book,

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Always Ready. I think it's page 74 or something along those lines. He says, quote, Reason, logic, and morality only make sense within the

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Christian worldview. Now, of course, that is not by any means fideism. We're not saying just believe in God without reason.

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We're not saying reason should be disparaged. As I mentioned before, we are not against reason.

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We do not disparage reason, nor do we de -emphasize reason. Reason is absolutely essential, but we need to define what we mean by reason.

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By reason, I don't mean an autonomous reason. I mean a reason that is given the meaningful and intelligible context of the

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Christian worldview. Now, what we're saying is that logic and reason themselves are dependent on God, and if you try to start with logic or reason apart from God, you've already made a critical mistake.

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You've assumed—not you, but one who does this—assumes that logic can work autonomously without God who created it.

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But, of course, the presuppositionalist says, no, logic presupposes God. You can't get to logic or reason without God in the first place, and so both are at work simultaneously.

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Again, Van Til says in the Defense of the Faith, page 125, he says, quote, The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks, and it speaks of everything.

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We do not begin by reasoning to this God, but by reasoning in terms of Him. Okay?

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Notice what he says there. He says, We do not begin by reasoning to this God, but by reasoning in terms of Him.

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We are reasoning—we're not disparaging reason—but we are reasoning in terms of Him, because it is

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He who gives context for the meaningfulness of our very reasoning itself.

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We don't put God to the side and try to reason our way to Him using some autonomous human logic. We reason because of Him.

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He is the ultimate foundation for logic and reason. Now, this brings me to what

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I think is a critical point, the distinction between proximate starting points and ultimate starting points.

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And so Jacob sets up this false dichotomy that you either start with God or you start with the self or with reason or with logic.

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But here's the thing. That's not how it works. As I mentioned before, that's a false dichotomy.

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We have to understand that there are different kinds of starting points. And when we use the phrase starting point, this is where kind of an equivocation occurs.

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Okay? You have ultimate starting points as opposed to proximate starting points. You have logical starting points as opposed to chronological starting points.

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And there's also a difference between starting in principle and starting in practice with something. So if we don't differentiate these different senses of, quote -unquote, starting with, we end up talking past each other.

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And so no presupposition – and I'm going to repeat this – no presuppositionalist is saying that we chronologically start with God.

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Obviously, when we're talking about our experience, we chronologically start with the self. We affirm that.

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Even Bonson makes this point clear. He says – I think it was in a lecture or something – he says, of course we start with ourselves in terms of experience, but that doesn't mean that the self is our ultimate starting point.

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This isn't a surprise to presuppositionalists when folks point this out. It is known in the literature and in various lectures and so forth.

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There is a difference between chronologically starting with something and logically starting with something. Our ultimate starting points and proximate starting points.

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Okay? There is a distinction between logical starting points and chronological starting points. While we may chronologically begin with our own experience because that's where we become aware of ourselves logically, but ultimately we start with God because he is the necessary foundation that makes all of our experience intelligible.

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And so there's a crucial difference between an ultimate starting point, where our reasoning must be grounded, and a proximate starting point, which is simply where we begin in terms of practice or experience.

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Now, I hope this is making sense. Again, for those who are not familiar with these topics, I do apologize, but for those who are familiar with these categories of metaphysics, epistemology, and logical order and chronological order, hopefully these distinctions are useful to you.

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Now, let's address the idea that presuppositionalism requires us to, as Jacob said, switch back and forth between epistemology and metaphysics.

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Now, Jacob argues that presuppositionalism collapses these two, right, into each—he says they collapse into each other and forces us to go back and forth between them, but that, again, is not at all accurate.

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Van Til never said that we need to switch between epistemology and metaphysics, nor does his view entail that one must switch between them.

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What he said is that they work together, simultaneously. Epistemology, the way we know things, is always rooted in metaphysics, what is real.

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And what is real is that God is the creator and sustainer of all things, and that gives meaning and coherence to our knowledge.

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As Van Til puts it in a survey of Christian epistemology, page 9, he says, "...the recognition of the creator -creature distinction carries with it the necessity of thinking

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God's thoughts after him in epistemology as well as in metaphysics." And so in presuppositionalism, we don't switch between these categories, they work hand in hand.

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And so God is the ultimate foundation for both our knowledge—epistemology—and reality—metaphysics—and we reason from that foundation.

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Now, what about Jacob's comments respecting fideism and classicalism?

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And so Jacob says, and this is a quote again, to quote him again from the video, "...if you start with God, that's fideism.

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If you start with logic, that's classicalism." But again, this is not true, right?

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The ultimate starting point is the triune God, and the proximate starting point is our own reasoning and experience.

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Both work together simultaneously. The ultimate starting point,

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God, gives meaning and context to the proximate starting point, our reasoning. And so we don't have to choose between the two, rather we recognize that our human reasoning depends on the reality of God.

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It's not about being trapped between fideism or classicalism, it's about understanding that God is the necessary foundation for all knowledge, including logic and reasoning.

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As Greg Bonson said, quote—this is from Always Ready, page 74— "...God is not merely one more fact that we come to know in addition to others.

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Rather, He is the precondition of any knowledge whatsoever." And that's the presuppositional position.

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That's why we reject this false choice between fideism and classicalism. We start with God, because God is the one who makes our reasoning and our knowledge intelligible.

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And so to summarize this, presuppositionalism doesn't collapse metaphysics and epistemology into one thing or switching between them, right?

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It doesn't require us to switch back and forth between these categories. Instead, it recognizes that our knowledge and the nature of reality are rooted in the triune

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God. And we're not forced into a false dichotomy between fideism and classicalism. We start with God and our reasoning at the same time, but our reasoning only makes sense because God is the foundation for all knowledge.

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That's the presuppositional position, and it's consistent, it's coherent, and it's grounded in what

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I would argue—which is not what I'm arguing here, it's grounded in biblical categories. And so when Jacob says, if you start with God, that's fideism.

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If you start with logic and reason and so forth, that's classicalism. That is a false dichotomy because there is a third option.

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And when expressing that third option, it demonstrates—because it's neither of the options that he offered— it demonstrates that presuppositionalism is not fideism.

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It's not fideism because I'm not simply saying I start with God to the exclusion of those other things.

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Nor is it classicalism because I'm doing what the classicalist is doing. There is a third option, making it by definition neither the two options that you offered.

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So if it's fideism, if I start with God, well, that's not our position. And if it's classicalism, if we start with logic, well, that's not our position.

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What is our position? We start with both simultaneously, making the proper distinctions between ultimate starting points and proximate starting points.

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Now, even if you disagree whether, you know, that's the correct way to understand things, at least understand that what we're saying does not entail what you think it entails in terms of fideism and classicalism and things like that.

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So just keep that in mind. I think that's important. I think that will help in a long way in terms of better communicating with one another.

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Now, again, I don't expect Jacob to like, oh, is that what you meant? All right, yeah, it's fine. I completely understand.

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I completely understand that that's not how things work. But hopefully this clarification will be useful to you,

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Jacob, as you interact with other presuppositionalists, if you are doing that or if that's a normal thing that you spend time doing.

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Now, I want to go through a couple of questions and interact with them that are related to these sorts of things, because, you know, there are things that pop up in discussion over these issues.

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And so I'm no longer responding to Jacob at this point. I'm just going to be taking some questions that are often asked with respect to this topic.

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And so I'll kind of just go through these and share my thoughts, and then we will wrap things up here. And so I hope this has been helpful for folks who are interested in this topic and are looking for some clarification on these more sophisticated issues.

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And for Jacob, I hope that this is somewhat clarifying, even though most likely you're not going to agree.

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At least you understand a little bit more about where we're coming from.

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Now, there is a difference between what we're saying and what you think our position logically entails. So you might think that our position logically entails the things that you laid out.

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But I would just say that, A, you are mistaken with respect to what you think we're saying, and that's clear based upon your comments.

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And, B, I would argue, and I'm not doing this here necessarily, but I don't think that what you think the presuppositional position entails has the ramifications that you most likely think they do.

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And, of course, I don't know the details of how you would respond to that. But feel free, if you want to respond to this video, that's totally cool.

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Again, as I said at the beginning, I'm not going to be making this a prolonged back and forth. I'm just sharing my thoughts here, and hopefully it's useful to some folks.

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Now, here is my first question. If someone were to say, if you claim that both God and logic are simultaneous starting points, aren't you just sneaking in a circular argument?

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How is that not begging the question? And this often comes up all the time. And I think it's important to recognize that, and I've said this multiple times on my channel, and I know there are people who are kind of foundationalists and hold to certain philosophical views concerning epistemology that disagree with this.

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But, again, I have my criticisms of those views, but that's not the topic of this video here. I'm just sharing my thoughts here.

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But I think it's important to recognize that all worldviews operate on a foundation of presuppositions, whether they acknowledge it or not.

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Some people think they avoid having ultimate presuppositions. I disagree with that, and obviously I can't get into the details here.

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But, nevertheless, the presuppositional argument, or the presuppositional method, is not committing the fallacy of begging the question or of what we might call vicious circularity.

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Okay? When we use a transcendental argument, there is nothing intrinsic about a transcendental argument that makes it logically fallacious.

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As I've mentioned multiple times, a traditional transcendental argument would go something along the lines of X is the necessary condition for Y, Y therefore

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X. That's not fallaciously circular at all. And how I have laid out the presuppositional argument, the transcendental argument,

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I typically do it in a deductive form. That is not normal in the sense that Van Til, to my knowledge, did not lay out the transcendental argument in deductive form.

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Nor do I think Bonson did, but I'd have to double -check. Some people even argue that the transcendental argument shouldn't be laid out in deductive form.

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And I'm not getting into those disputes, because obviously within every camp you do have some nuances and things like that. But here's the thing.

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Number one, the transcendental argument, as Van Til put it, was an indirect argument.

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You can't claim it's a circular argument, because a circular argument is a feature of a direct argument.

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A direct argument runs along the traditional lines of a deductive kind of step, step, and conclusion. Van Til never presented it in that way, and so it can't be guilty of something that is a feature of a direct argument when

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Van Til explicitly says his argument is indirect. That's the nature of a transcendental argument. Now, I tend to put it in a deductive form.

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However, I do defend in my deductive argument the transcendental premise.

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I defend it transcendentally, so indirectly. So you have a deductive argument with a transcendental premise that is defended indirectly.

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And so I've gone over that argument multiple times, but there's nothing in it that has, for example, the conclusion stated in one of the premises.

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That's just not the feature of – no one's arguing the Bible is true because the Bible is true. I mean, these are the surface -level kinds of critiques that often people launch towards the presuppositional perspective.

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Transcendental arguments are an argument form. They're not logically fallacious. They either succeed or they don't succeed.

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So if I were to give a transcendental argument, whether in the non -deductive format of Van Til or Bonson, if I were to give that argument, it is an appropriate argument form, and the argument is either a good argument or it's not a good argument.

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If it's not a good argument, it's not because it's fallaciously circular. If it's not a good argument, it's because it doesn't actually do what the argument claims to do, namely provide the fact that the

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Christian worldview does in fact provide the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience. But there's nothing wrong with its form, because it's not following a typical – at least in Van Til, it's not following a typical kind of deductive form.

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And if you are to lay out the transcendental argument in a deductive form, it still doesn't commit any type of fallacy.

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You just have to explore whether the transcendental premise is correct. So if I were to lay out in very simple terms, if knowledge is possible, the

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Christian worldview is true. Knowledge is possible, therefore the Christian worldview is true. The first premise is the transcendental premise.

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It's going to be defended indirectly. There's a positive aspect on how that premise is defended, a negative aspect as to how it's defended as well, and if it's established, then the argument goes through at least in that particular form.

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But it's not a necessity to lay out the argument in that form. I've just chosen to do that to illustrate – basically

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I put the argument in that form to illustrate the idea as to how it's not fallaciously circular.

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No one's arguing in a circular way. And this is why there's a distinction. I've made this distinction in multiple videos.

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There's a distinction between circular reasoning and circular argument. They're not the same thing. And there is a difference between a premise of an argument and the presupposition of an argument.

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Now I'm not going to rehash those issues here, but if those are familiar to folks who are familiar with the things that I say, hopefully that makes sense so you can kind of see the point at what

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I'm getting at. Now a next question that is often asked is someone might say, why not start with reason alone and use it to discover

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God, as classical apologetics seem to suggest? Wouldn't this avoid the charge of fideism?

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Now again, I'm not going to speak for classical apologists. Again, I'm not a classical apologist. So I would just say that starting with reason alone assumes that human reason is autonomous.

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Now I don't think that all classicalists would affirm that human reason is autonomous. Their methodology might imply that.

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They might say, well, I don't believe reason is autonomous. But then the way they argue might assume those categories unbeknownst to themselves.

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Or you do have some people who say, yes, it is autonomous. It depends who you're talking to. But I wouldn't say, someone says, why not start with reason alone?

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Because I do think that autonomous reasoning is A, unbiblical, and B, philosophically insufficient to ground knowledge and intelligibility.

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And again, the reason for that is, obviously I can't get into it all in the details here, because this video is not meant to be a huge explanation of that.

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If you guys are familiar with my views, you would be familiar with how I would go into the details of that.

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Now, I don't think that presuppositionalism is fideism at all. And the reason for that is because the centerpiece of the presuppositional approach is the transcendental argument.

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And the transcendental argument seeks to objectively prove the existence of the triune God of Scripture. Whether it does it successfully is a different issue and a different question, and obviously we'd have to get into the details of that.

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But it's not fideism because it literally is the opposite of fideism. It's not disparaging reason, it disparages autonomous reason, and embraces a reason within the context of a biblical worldview.

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And it's trying to argue that God exists, not just a generic God, the Christian God exists, by the impossibility of the contrary.

31:14

Now again, you might think the argument fails or it's not a good argument, but that's what we're attempting to do. And just looking at the project of the presuppositionalist utilizing a transcendental argument, it's not even close to fideism.

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As a matter of fact, it is more ambitious than any classical argument for the existence of a generic

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God, and then you kind of glue on to that, you know, arguments for the resurrection, and then, you know, come to some kind of conclusion to a high probability or whatever, okay?

31:40

Now again, I'm just thumbnailing that, there are other people who add more specificity and sophistication to that, but you get what

31:45

I mean. The project of the presuppositionalist is far more ambitious than any other apologetic approach, and so it's not, the nature of that method is not fideism.

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Now you might think that presuppositionalism logically entails fideism, so that on the one hand, the presuppositionalist is not trying to be a fideist, but his methodology and argumentation leads to fideism.

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And if that's what someone thinks, I would just argue that that's wrong, and that needs to be demonstrated. And I have not heard a sufficient demonstration of that point, and I've heard many attempts to do so, okay?

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And so I don't think those attempts even come close, and even the claim that R .C. Sproul makes that presuppositionalism pretty much basically leads to fideism,

32:26

I think that R .C. Sproul is wrong there, and it shouldn't be weird for me to think that R .C. Sproul is wrong, because I disagree with him,

32:33

I think he's wrong, and I think it can be demonstrated, and I think it has been demonstrated in various contexts. Alright, let's see here.

32:41

Isn't presuppositionalism too rigid by rejecting the use of evidence or classical arguments for God's existence?

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What if someone is convinced by those arguments? Now again, this question is based off a misunderstanding of presuppositionalism.

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There's kind of a mixing up of categories here. Presuppositionalism doesn't reject evidence, okay?

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It interprets evidence within the proper context. We think that evidence is not this neutral category.

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Evidence only has meaning in as much as it relates to a broader worldview context in which that evidence is utilized.

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And so the issue is not about whether we can use evidence or quote -unquote classical arguments, but rather about the foundation on which those arguments stand.

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If you attempt to use evidence or reason apart from the context of the Christian worldview and the triune

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God who's revealed himself, right, then there's going to be an issue. Presuppositionalism argues that evidence and reason only make sense because of God.

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And so while classical arguments can be useful, I don't reject them wholesale, they must be understood as derivative from a worldview where God is already presupposed because it's that presupposition that gives meaning and intelligibility to the very possibility of arguing in the first place.

33:53

Now again, this isn't some weird thing that should shock people who are familiar with debates on apologetic methodology.

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Even Van Til said that I don't reject the traditional arguments. I only wish that we reformulated them in such a way as to be consistent with the biblical worldview.

34:09

Okay, so no, we don't reject those arguments. We just think that they should be presented in such a way that is consistent with a

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Christian worldview foundation, not assuming categories of autonomy and neutrality. All right, okay, so another question comes here.

34:28

You said that starting with logic or reason alone is a mistake. Can't atheist or other worldviews account for logic without invoking

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God? My answer to that would be, and this isn't a surprise, right, I would say no.

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Logic is, you know, here's why. Logic is not an abstract autonomous set of principles floating in a void somewhere.

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Logic reflects the consistency and rationality of the triune God. So in an atheistic or materialistic worldview where everything is a product of random chance and chaos, there's no grounding for the immutability, the unchangingness, and universality of logic.

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And so atheists can use logic, that's not the issue. Atheists use logic, they often use it very well. But what have we been saying?

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They can't account for it within their own world. You know, they think they can, and that's where we're going to have the debate and discussion and dispute, and that's fine.

35:19

But we're arguing that they can't account for abstract universal conceptual laws of logic in a world that is purely material.

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Now, I do know that there are atheists who are not pure materialists, you know, and then we'd have to hear that case and we'll have to interact with that as it comes along.

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But, you know, talking about the bare materialist, I don't think logic makes very much sense within a purely materialistic worldview.

35:41

Because if everything is material, then you're going to have to reduce the laws of logic to materiality, which, again, has some huge problems with it.

35:48

So atheists can use logic, but they cannot account for logic. That's what we would argue. As Van Til once said in a quick little quip, he said that unbelievers can count, but they cannot account for counting.

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Now, that's kind of a fun little way to summarize it, but there's an argument in there, okay?

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Someone says, well, I can account for logic. Okay, okay, Mr. Atheist, account for logic. And then they attempt to do so, and of course, as Christians, we need to interact with those attempts so as to make good on the claim that atheists cannot account, materialists cannot account for logic.

36:24

Now, someone might ask, how do you respond to the claim that presuppositionalism is just an arbitrary assertion?

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We're just simply saying God exists without proof. Now, again, this is a common claim. I would put this in the category of the surface -level kind of Internet, you know, we're just saying that God exists.

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That's obviously not what we're saying. And even if I was not a presuppositionalist, but I understood presuppositionalism,

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I would not say that that's what the presuppositionalist is saying. I think that's the wrong way to go about it.

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So the presuppositional approach isn't arbitrary because it's grounded in a transcendental argument.

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We're not arbitrarily saying God exists and leaving it at that. That's not what we're doing. You might think that's what we're doing.

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Maybe some presuppositionalists out there seem to argue that way, but that's not what the transcendental argument entails.

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We're arguing that God is the necessary foundation for any kind of proof, logic, or knowledge, or whatever.

37:19

And so without the triune God, you wouldn't even have the tools to make sense of reality, to make sense out of truth, to make sense out of morality, right?

37:25

It's like arguing for the necessity of air, as you often see this example. You may not see air, but without it, you couldn't live.

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And likewise, God's existence is necessary for the coherence of any rational argument or worldview.

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We're not simply making that claim. We actually try to argue for it. How do we argue for it? By providing a transcendental argument.

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We lay out Christian presuppositions, and we show that the Christian presuppositions actually meet the standard of being the necessary precondition for those very things, and then we illustrate that point by showing that other worldviews that claim that they can ground those things cannot in fact ground them.

38:01

Again, these are going to be discussions and debates, right? I mean, I'm just making sweeping statements at this point, but you get the idea, right?

38:08

We're not simply saying God exists and that's it. Some people might be doing that, but that's definitely not what the methodology entails, okay?

38:16

And that's why I made the distinction between presuppositionalism as a methodology and presuppositionalist as individuals.

38:23

There are some people who claim to be presuppositionalists who might argue that way, but that's not intrinsic to the method, and that's not intrinsic to the form of argumentation that we typically take.

38:33

All right. Let's see. I think that's a good place to stop.

38:43

All right. Well, again, I don't pretend that this is exhaustive by any means. There's obviously a whole wide range of issues to cover, and everything that I've said here in this video may inspire more questions, but that's okay, right?

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That's what I try to do in this channel. I say things, I argue for things, people say, hey, but what about, and then I try my best to respond to those things.

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Obviously, it's part of a fruitful dialogue and communication with people who disagree that allow these sorts of conversations to move forward.

39:12

But I do hope that this response and the answer to some of those questions was useful for folks.

39:17

I do apologize for the advanced nature of this discussion. That is just the nature of the beast given the nature of the response offered by Jacob Brunton.

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I felt the need to kind of address those as best I can, and then hopefully they're useful both to Jacob and to those who are wondering about these topics.

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Once again, I don't pretend that Jacob is going to be like, all right, I understand this, and now I agree with you.

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I'm just saying these things to help clarify. If you disagree, that's okay.

39:45

It's not the end of the world. I think I'm right. You think you're right. That's just the nature of disagreement, as long as when we're interacting with one another, when we claim our positions are a biblical position, or we claim that our positions are philosophically cogent and so forth, and we come to a disagreement there, hopefully folks in either camps, whether you're a presuppositionalist or a classicalist or whatever, that we are able to discuss those differences in a way that is consistent with the

40:16

Word of God. Remember, 1 Peter 3 .15, I want to read it for you guys.

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Yes, I know it by heart, but I want to read it specifically to highlight something very important to remind us of the importance of playing nice.

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And that doesn't mean that we diminish the importance of these issues. For example, Jacob Brunton thinks that presuppositionalism is immoral, and I disagree with him.

40:42

I've given my reasons. I think his reasons are not good reasons, but if he's convinced that it's immoral,

40:48

I mean, I can't change the man's mind. That's going to be an issue of further communication and clarification, and at the end of the day, he's going to hold the position that he holds, and we're going to hold the positions that we hold.

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But in the midst of that, I do think that 1 Peter 3 .15 is a good reminder that if we claim to have a biblical position, let us not forget that the position not only has to be biblical with respect to which view you're holding, but the way in which we communicate those things should be biblical as well, and so we don't want to forget this.

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1 Peter 3 .15, our famous apologetics verse, but in your hearts, honor

41:25

Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.

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You disagree? That's fine. Let's interact with gentleness and respect. You think I'm wrong?

41:40

That's fine. Let's interact with gentleness and respect, especially if we're brothers in Christ.

41:47

So that is my advice for people, just pointing them back to the basic truths of Scripture. It's not just what you're saying, it is also how you are saying it as well.

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That does not mean there is no place for firm interaction and firm correction, but I think it is helpful that we're able to interact respectfully, and to that end,

42:06

I would like to thank Jacob Brunton, even though this is not a sophisticated, deep response by Jacob, not because he can't offer one, but he's literally finishing up a jog and giving his brief thoughts.

42:19

We don't want to be too hard on him there. He's just giving his off -the -cuff response here, and that's perfectly fine. But what

42:25

I appreciate about this response is that he comes off very respectfully. If you have experience with him in the past,

42:32

I've heard lots of stories, well, he's this way, he's that way. Okay, he hasn't expressed that here.

42:39

I think he came across very respectful, and I very much appreciate that. So, without further comments here,

42:46

I hope that this was useful. If you appreciate the content, please, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe to Revealed Apologetics.

42:54

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43:09

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43:14

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43:23

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43:28

And I also offer some courses that I teach that are recorded courses and presentations on various aspects of apologetics.

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That can be accessed on the website as well. And all the links for those things are in the description to this video.