Against Presuppositionalism

 0. Introduction

For centuries theologians have offered philosophical arguments for the existence of God from the general features of the natural world, and this practice is often called Natural Theology. In the history of philosophy, there have been innumerable arguments offered for the Existence of a personal and eternal creator of the universe. This article is a criticism of a the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG) and of so-called “Presuppositional Apologetics,” which is founded upon this argument. It is essential to keep in mind that this is meant as a deductive argument for God. The premises are meant to be necessary truths which lead inescapably to the conclusion, TAG is not meant to be an inductive proof of God. 

1. Biblical Problems

The argument was given a very Reformed Protestant twist by Cornelius Van Til, who developed a form of apologetics founded upon the TAG. Those who follow his apologetic method (Presuppositionalists) are almost invariably Calvinists, because it is ultimately an apologetic tailor-made for Calvinist soteriology. Presuppositional apologists often do not seek to prove the existence of God by presenting arguments or evidence for the truth of their religion, but rather they contend that the very use of rationality, ethics, language, mathematics, etc., presupposes the existence of their particular God. They do not, strictly speaking, to argue for the existence of their God, rather they seek to demonstrate that reasoning itself presupposes the existence of their God. Today, it is possible to find a Presuppositionalist in nearly every large Reformed Baptist Church in the United States, therefore I have sought to write an article simple enough for even the layman to understand the main arguments presented.

One of the primary claims of "Presuppositional Apologists," is that every human being already knows that their God exists. They know this either consciously, or they presuppose the truth of Calvinist-Theology every time they appeal to rational thought and suppress this truth in unrighteousness. They base this assertion on their interpretation of Rom. 1:18-20, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” (King James Version)

These statements testify two a general sensus divinitatis and secondly to the truth of natural theology. The apostle says that “which may be known of God is manifest in them” or more properly, “manifest among them,” (Young’s Literal Translation) “plain to them,” (Revised Standard Version) or “is evident among them.” (Lexham English Bible) The existence of God may be “clearly seen” or discerned by observing the general features of the world. And generally men have a sense or awareness of the existence of God or the divine. But this does not mean that all men believe in his existence without exception. I could demonstrate to a believer in flat earth cosmology that the earth is “clearly seen” to be spherical upon scientific analysis, but that does not mean he will believe my clear demonstration. Just because a proposition is “clearly seen” to be true, and this demonstration is “being understood,” by someone, it does not mean they will believe it. There are plenty of unreasonable, ignorant, biased or deluded people who will not believe readily evident truths even when they can be demonstrated to them. Furthermore, some men suffer from severe brain damage, or mental disability or psychological trauma etc. such people as these are incapable of reasoning properly, let alone belief in the existence of God. The apostle does not mean nor does he say that all who profess to be atheists are actually liars who believe God exists. Some have been so affected by the harsh effects of sin that they have actually become atheists. We must never underestimate the crippling effects of sin. (Eph. 2:3) The unrepentant sinner may become so corrupted that he no longer has an innate awareness of God, a sensus divinitatis, and rejects the plain evidence of creation evident in the most general features of the world.

There are many passages in the Bible which teach that there at least some genuine atheists. The most famous example is Psa. 14:1, which says, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”” The fool described in Psalm 14 sincerely believes there is no God, he says this “in his heart.” In the Hebrew Bible the heart often figuratively signifies, the interior mental life, the emotions, passions, and deepest thoughts of a person, “Among the Semites… all that was peculiar to man, in the category of feelings as well as intellect and will, was attributed to the heart… the sum total of the interior man as opposed to the flesh, which is the exterior and tangible man.” (The Metaphorical Use of the Names of Parts of the Body in Hebrew and in Akkadian, by E. Dhorme, Paris, 1963, pp. 113, 114, 128.) This is made all the more plain by comparing the use of the word “heart” in Prov. 4:23; 17:3; 25:12 and Psa. 17:3. The parallel Psalm makes this point even clearer, “all his thoughts are “there is no God.” (Psa. 10:4) Therefore, Psa. 14:1 clearly describes the existence of genuine atheists, that is, people who do not believe that any God exists. There is a general innate knowledge of God among men, but some are so affected by sin that they no longer believe in the existence of any Creator whatsoever.

In the Greek Scriptures, the word which signifies belief or faith is πίστις and it is used at Jas. 2:19, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.” This verse signifies that even wicked spirits believe or have faith in the existence of God. But atheists are referred to in the Bible as “faithless (ἀπίστοις),” that is, lacking belief, literally, “belief-less.” (Rev. 21:8; cf. Lk. 9:41; Joh. 20:27) What else could that title signify except but lacking belief in the existence of God? The apostle warns, “without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists.” (Heb. 11:6) Not all men have faith that God exists. What could be a more simple proof of this fact than the statement “not all have faith”? (2Thess. 3:2) The TAG is a rather recent argument for the existence of God, which is never laid out in any chapter of the Bible, nor was it ever offered by any ancient philosopher. Never do we find the apostles or prophets presenting a form of Presuppositional apologetics to their listeners. The Psalmist never chastises atheism by saying that there are no true atheists, all men actually know God exists, and the very use of logic proves this. Instead, the apostles and prophets present empirical evidences to prove their claims, namely, they performed miracles and offered fulfilled prophecy as visible evidence that they were genuine representatives of God. (Isa. 41:23; 46:10; Acts 3:2-11; 4:30; 6:8; 8:6, 7, 13, 39; 9:34, 35-42; 28:8) They say that the appearance of teleology in the general features of the Universe implies the existence of God. (Psa. 19:1; 92:4; Acts 17:24-28) But never do we see them arguing that belief in God is necessary for reason or logic. If belief in the God of Abraham is the ‘pre-condition for reason and intelligibility’ as the Presuppositionalists claim, then the apostles and prophets would not have presented such empirical evidences to unbelievers—they would have offered the TAG argument instead.

2. The Transcendental Argument

The TAG has been given numerous formulations, but they all claim that the laws of logic, physics, and objective ethical principles all presuppose the existence of the “Christian God.” They say logic, science, and objective morality cannot be justified or accounted for by any other worldview besides their own. The reasoning might be summarized concisely in this way,

1. It is a fact that rational thought exists.

2. There are certain pre-conditions for rational thought, namely, the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, etc.

3. These pre-conditions could only be found in the Christian God.

C. Therefore, the Christian God exists.

I have yet to meet any defender of the TAG argument who explains how God accounts for the laws of logic, other than a vague notion of divine conceptualism. Does God thinking about logic cause the existence of logic? If God stops thinking about logic, will logic vanish? What would that mean? How does God’s merely thinking of logic cause its existence? 

With the TAG in place, presuppositionalists proceed to argue that anyone who uses rational thought is presupposing the existence of the “Christian God,” and therefore, when any atheist argues against the existence of God, he is presupposing the existence of God—which is self-refuting. The third premise of the argument is what I will be disputing for the rest of this essay. The defenders of TAG often begin by attacking Ontological naturalism (or materialism) which is the view that everything in existence is reducible to matter and energy. On ontological naturalism, it is admittedly difficult or impossible to account for things like, objective morality, the uniformity of nature, the laws of logic, etc. But pointing this fact out does not prove that such things can only be explained by the existence of the “Christian God” as Presuppositionalists define him. It only points out the deficiency of ontological naturalism to account for the basic features of the world, but it does not get them proof of premise 3.

3. Other Possible Explanations

The crucial premise of the argument is premise 3, and this premise is to my mind, clearly false. Even if it were true that the pre-conditions of rational thought must be explained by the existence of a deity, there is no reason to suppose that it must be the Abrahamic God, and much less that it should be the particular definition of the Abrahamic God given by the Presuppositionalists. There are many denominations of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam who credit different attributes to the God of Abraham. There are numerous other proposed deities which might just as easily explain the existence of logical laws, the uniformity of nature, ethics, etc. Why not the First Mover of Aristotle, the One of Plotinus, or the Ahura Mazda of Zoroaster? Why is it that only the “Christian God” can possibly account for these pre-conditions of rational thought? Even certain formulations of Deism might account for these things. Someone could posit two or three deities, or even several hundred deities to explain the existence of rational thought. Or the favorite deity of any innumerable past religions or cults. Whenever I have pressed the Presuppositionalists on this point, they evade the argument and ask whether I believe in any of these deities. But this is beside the point. The main issue is that such examples demonstrate premise 3 to be false. Even if the Presuppositionalist refuted all existing explanations for the pre-conditions of rational thought except for his own—there still might be some new explanation in the future which explains the pre-conditions of rationality equally as well as his. The Presuppositionalist will never prove that logical laws require a deity to exist, he merely assert this. If he is to claim that logical laws are either material or conceptual he must prove this assertion. He must first demonstrate what they are and then he must demonstrate that they depend upon the existence of the “Christian God” and cannot possibly be explained by anything else.

4. Logic and God

The Presuppositionalists also claim that their God cannot violate the laws of logic, id est their God could not create a stick with one end; he could not make 2+2=5; he cannot lie; he could not create a sphere which was not spherical and so on. If not even the eternal God can actualize logical contradictions, how anyone say that logic depends upon him for its existence? The Presuppositionalist makes the radical claim that only their position can account for logical laws but they have not proven this. One might say that the laws of logic are simply analytic (true by definition), and could not not exist. If the Presuppositionalist seeks to give a divine conceptualist account, then he must first prove that logical principles are ideas in the mind of God, and not simply necessary principles which would exist regardless of whether God conceptualizes them. The Presuppositionalist claims that it is impossible for such things to be explained by anything else but the existence of God as he defines Him but he has not shouldered his burden of proof.

5. Platonic Considerations

Plato believed in the existence of a God who created the Universe, whom he called the Demiurge, but he did not claim that morality, logic, and ethics depended upon the existence of this Creator. Plato argued that universals (which he called “forms”) like the laws of logic existed necessarily, outside of the physical world and independently of the Creator God. Universals are conceived as necessarily existing abstract objects which are co-eternal with the Demiurge. (Timaeus, 49a1-4; Republic, 500-501.) He also grounded objective morality in one of these forms, which he referred to as “the form of the good.” (Republic, VI., 508b-c.) Therefore, although he believed in objective morality, he did not ground it in a deity. The Presuppositionalist must demonstrate that all such explanations are impossible. But there is certainly no logical contradiction in supposing this is the case. Further, any atheist could simply claim belief in Plato’s forms and challenge the Presuppositionalist to refute the Theory of Forms. If it is even possible that abstract objects exist external to God, then the presuppositionalists explanation is only contingent, not necessary, and TAG fails. And what of those who claim that universals are simply brute facts?

6. Cognitive Faculties and Divine Revelation

Presuppositionalist apologists often offer what I consider to be one of the most dishonest arguments ever offered in human history. They ask, “How do you know that your cognitive faculties are functioning properly most of the time?” If you answer that they produce reliable results, they will retort, “Did you use your cognitive faculties to determine that?” To which, the honest interlocutor must admit, “Yes.” But when you ask the same question back to the Presuppositionalist, he claims he has a way out! He says that God revealed to him that his cognitive faculties work properly, and that you also received this special revelation. The Presuppositionalist then claims it is necessary to accept this claim as true or you cannot justify your reasoning. Unfortunately for the Presuppositionalist, the apostles and prophets never make this argument anywhere in the Bible. Nor is his claim even coherent. Even if we grant the Presuppositionalist his claim to have received some sort of divine revelation, he must use his own cognitive faculties to receive this divine revelation, and therefore, he must presuppose their reliability to accept this revelation as true. There are many purported divine revelations, and some of them are false. The Bible itself encourages that we use our own reasoning to scrutinize the content of purported divine revelations, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 Joh. 4:1) Did the Presuppositionalist perform such a “test” with this alleged divine revelation about the reliability of his cognitive faculties? In order to “test” any divine revelation, you must first presuppose the reliability of your cognitive faculties. The Presuppositionalist cannot reasonably claim to have received a divine revelation that his cognitive faculties function properly, because this is logically incoherent. He had to presuppose his cognitive faculties functioned properly enough to receive this revelation. “I think” is the fundamental axiom not divine revelation of some sort. To assert “I do not think,” is a self-contradiction. In order to deny that you think, you must be thinking. The most fundamental axiom is not divine revelation, nor could it be, because you must think in order to receive, comprehend, or accept divine revelation—and when you accept a divine revelation you are assuming that your cognitive faculties are reliable, otherwise you might be deluded about receiving a divine revelation. This is the truth famously highlighted by Descartes in his saying, cogito ergo sum. The Presuppositionalists often define “knowledge” as justified true belief (JTB). Then they say that you must believe in God in order to know anything, otherwise you will end up in an infinite regress of justifications. To highlight this, they will often ask “How do you know that?” several times, then conclude, that you must have an absolute foundation, namely, God, to end this infinite regress of justifications. To which, again, I answer, “I think” is the fundamental axiom because of the impossibility of the contrary. To think “I do not think” is a self-contradiction. Furthermore, one can simply deny the JTB definition of knowledge, on the basis of Gettier Cases and posit some other definition of knowledge.

7. Agnosticism

The agnostic might simply remain neutral on whether premise 3 is true and refuse to posit an explanation. The agnostic could then chastise the Presuppositionalist for being so bold as to claim no other possible explanation for these facts could exist without offering any good argument.