Problems with Presuppositionalism: Two Brothers Talk it Out

Criticisms of Presuppositionalism and the Influence of Kant

Now, this question's on apologetic methodology. I am a hardcore presuppositionalist, and we're going to differ here, but I promise, for the sake of this interview, you can be as open and honest in answering this question, and you'll get no pushback from me.

Okay? So, here's a question. What would be some of your criticisms of presuppositionalism you find most compelling? Maybe one or two things. You think, yeah, presuppositionalism's got really good things to offer, but here are some issues as to why I'm not a presuppositionalist.

Yeah, I actually think presuppositionalism would not have come into existence had it not been for post-Kantian skepticism. That would have meant you can't do it. With Rene Descartes, all of a sudden, rather than metaphysical realism, you had epistemological dualism, where you separate your idea of the object, of the perceived object, and the object itself.

That kind of set the stage, even though Descartes was trying to defend Christianity, for Kant to question whether the categories of the mind, which enable us to interpret reality, whether or not that really does get us to know reality, or only reality, or are we imposing meaning on reality?

I think with that kind of skepticism, and then the Kantian and Umean, David Hume, the attacks on the traditional arguments, Christians had to make a choice. I think one choice was to stick with metaphysical realism and refute Kant.

The other choice would be to accept Kant, what Kant is saying, and try to either refute him, like Stuart Hackett. He believed that God preformed the categories of the mind to give us real knowledge about the world outside our minds, the world, the real world out there.

But I think that the presuppositionalists move to the point where you have to have your worldview first, and then interpret the facts. And I would say, I'm not opposed to presuppositions, but I think presuppositions can be questioned.

And I think that's what the presuppositionalist does. He questions the presupposition of the non-believers. But the non-believer is questioning the presupposition of the presuppositionalist. And so, I think you can argue effectively from God to truth, meaning, and morality, but I think you can also argue from truth, meaning, and morality to God as well.

I think that epistemological priority does not equal metaphysical priority. I think it's a category mistake of the presuppositionalist to assume if someone is arguing first for something in the universe, or let's say somebody argues for the universe first, and then concludes that therefore there must be a God who created it, just because epistemologically the universe came first in that discussion, doesn't mean it has metaphysical priority to God.

I mean, it's like, you know, Philip brought Nathanael to Jesus, just because Philip brought Nathanael to Jesus didn't mean that Nathanael held higher regard for Philip than he did for Jesus. He was just an instrument bringing him to the authoritative God.

Presuppositionalism, Classical Arguments, and the Book Project

I'm going to be publishing a book, and I express my love for Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til and Bonson in the book, but I'll be doing presuppositionalism, a critique. I'm not expecting a wide readership, but I do think that presuppositionalism is a deep enough issue to where soundbites don't do it justice.

And so, I'd recommend probably by the end of summer it'll probably be in print, just probably print on demand, and just get it out there so I don't have to try to answer in soundbites on that topic and all.

Well, if you write a book critiquing presuppositionalism, I can guarantee that I will read it. I'll give it a read. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts there. And again, for folks who are presuppositionalists who are listening, it's okay to hear criticisms of presuppositionalism.

Take the criticism and think it through, and if you think it's insufficient, you formulate your thoughts and you share your responses. So that's how brotherly interaction happens when you are interacting with someone you disagree with.

Yeah, I actually think the greatest critique of Van Til's Transcendental Argument came from one of his greatest students, John Frame, who calls himself a presuppositionalist of the heart. And what that actually means, he's not really a Van Tilian presuppositionalist.

I would classify Francis Schaeffer, John Frame, and John Carnell as verificationalists or neo-presuppositionalists. They're not really true Van Tilian presuppositionalists. I know a presuppositionalist who uses the Kalam argument.

And I say like... Well, that's not inconsistent. Yeah, yeah. You can't be a true... And so what I told him is tell people you're...

Well, I would say that's not inconsistent. I would argue that a presuppositionalist can use traditional arguments. So for example, Van Til didn't have an issue with the traditional arguments as long as you formulated them in a way that didn't sacrifice your Christian presuppositions with respect to neutrality and autonomy and things like that.

So when I spoke with Dr. Frame some years back, I met with him at RTS in Orlando. He had told me that shortly before Dr. Bonson passed away, he was working on writing a book in which you can restructure some of the traditional arguments within a presuppositional context.

So it's definitely not impossible, although not many presuppositionalists do it.

Van Til, Aquinas, and the Status of Facts

Yeah, but it's not... Van Til, I would argue, though, too, is certain things that he said enabled him to excuse himself when he did a little bit of classical apologetics. Okay. If we take that to heart, it makes you wonder why was he then so hard?

He acts like we're a bunch of Romanists, you know? And going back to Rome, I think, you know, would you agree with the statement that if the only way that any finite being, any contingent being, the only way any contingent being could exist would be if necessary being, infinite being, then has to exist the ground existence of finite being?

Yeah, I would say that you have necessary existence grounding derivative existence or contingent existence.

Yeah, but that's... I just summarized the first three ways Aquinas argued for God's existence.

Right, but the difference would be... So, for example, I could agree with that fact, but I don't think, as you mentioned before, where Van Til clumsily differentiated between common ground and neutral ground, I don't think that that fact is understood independent of a worldview that would make sense out of that fact.

So I could affirm, I could affirm, I think therefore I am, but the I is understood within a worldview context in which I would argue that the Christian worldview makes sense out of identity or something like that.

Yeah, but if the non-believer can believe one plus one equals two and get that right, and God said that he made his existence known to all mankind so that through creation, so man is without excuse, and even Van Til, not like Clark, Clark denies he believes that God's revelation doesn't get through, Van Til believes it does.

So, I mean, at the very least, I would say that Van Til, if he's going to be consistent, which he wasn't always, Boston's very consistent, but I think if Van Til was consistent, I think he would have to say that Aquinas was stating a fact.

Oh, well, I don't think Van Til would disagree with that. So like when an unbeliever states facts, I believe those facts are genuine facts, and I believe that the.

Unbeliever knows those facts. Yeah, but what I'm saying though is why can't, why can't me and Tommy Aquinas, I'm going to pretend I know him, I'm going to, why can't me, what if Tommy Aquinas, why can't we state a fact to non-believers?

If we agree it's a fact,.

Why can't we state it to non-believers? You can state facts to unbelievers. The presuppositional emphasis is that a fact, in order to be a fact, must have the Christian worldview context. So I would say that unbelievers know facts, but if their presuppositions, their God-denying presuppositions were true, they're not.

But if they were, the fact that they think they know.

Wouldn't be a fact. Now it is a fact, but it's because... Yeah, Geisler shows that Van Til and Aquinas say almost exactly the same thing at times, but Aquinas is speaking, at times Aquinas is speaking epistemologically, and Van Til is equating it as a metaphysical statement.

And I think that the image of God is modern, man, but I think the presuppositionalists act like natural revelation is special revelation. No classical apologists.

That I know of... Yeah, I'm not sure presuppositionalists would say that, though.

No, but they act like it, they act like nobody could really believe that God exists in their fallen state. Well, there's lots of people who believe in the existence... Can you say that again? Yeah, they often act like nobody can believe that God exists.

They might say they believe, but they would say, well, false God, this or that, and I'd agree with them on that, but they act like they can't really know any truth unless they have, unless they.

Presuppose the Christian worldview. Well, what I was saying, so a fact must be understood within a context, and so what we're saying is if you have the wrong context, then you don't have the proper interpretation of the fact.

Now, I believe they do have knowledge of the facts, but it's because they live inconsistently with their professed presuppositions. Yeah, yeah, and I.

Think that can be shown to them, but I think you argue in only one way, I don't think it's a one way street. I think you can argue both ways, and I think, though, the image of God and man has been marred.

Because we're fallen, we could add one plus one and come up with three, but we could still add one plus one and come up with two, and I don't think priests often live like classical apologists. I mean, if you ask a guy, how old is your mom, and he's an atheist, and he tells you his mom is 50, well, you know, you're not gonna say, wow, he doesn't presuppose God's existence.

Well, I mean, I mean, that statement, I wouldn't, and we'll, I'll just make this point, because I don't want to debate you on the, but just, I'm sure folks will find this interesting, this little back and forth, but sure, like when the unbeliever says my mom is 50 years old, like, no, like I'm not going to question him on that, but when we're in an apologetic encounter, when this person is denying the God whom the Bible says he has a sufficient knowledge of this God, then I'm going to say, okay, well, if you deny this God, make sense out of facts without him.

So I would, I wouldn't stop him at every point, be like, well, how do you know your mother's, but if it's part of the encounter where this unbeliever is, you know, we're engaging in a conflict of perspectives, then yeah, I'm going to ask you, give an account for the things you take for granted, and I would argue, and I.

Think you would probably agree with this. Yeah, traditional apologists do that all the time.

Right, but I think the key thing that differentiates presuppositionalism and say the more classical and evidential approaches is this issue of the assumption of the possibility of neutrality and autonomy with respect to understanding facts and the ability of the human mind, the human mind's reasoning capacity, so that when a classicalist says, I don't believe man's autonomous, cool, but we would say, but the way you present your arguments assumes that autonomy is the case, and here's why, and of course you have the debates.

Presuppositionalism and the Limits of One-Argument Apologetics

Yeah,.

Yeah, and I don't, and I see, I see the, just doing Vantillian presuppositionalism, I see that as inconsistent with that statement. I don't, I think it's either, you know, when Vantill says my argument or the highway, and this is the one argument, I agree with Frame, all they got to do is question one of your premises, and now you're forced to use other arguments, so it can't be the same argument, yeah.

Okay, so, so, okay, so I, we're going to disagree there, and that's completely fine, but I, when you write that book, I would be more than happy to give it a read. I do respect and, and appreciate what you have to say, so I would look forward to that,.

So you keep me updated when it comes out, I totally, I definitely will, you know, so someday maybe we'll get to get out to North Carolina, and absolutely I'll be the guy who sits on your couch.

And won't leave, so that's no, that's no problem, man, I'm sure we would get along really well. Well, well, Phil, I,.