# Evolution and the Transcendental Argument



## cupotea (May 19, 2004)

I am involved in an email correspondence with an evolution-supporting atheist. (Not sure if there is any other type of atheist  ) Anyway, he is bringing up all sorts of &quot;evidence&quot; for evolution, some of those being: vestigial organs,
recently discovered evolutionary predecessors of humans, etc..

I am having some trouble seeing how to apply the transcendental method of argumentation to this discussion. The reason for my difficulty is, I think, a lack of understanding as to why I need to argue for the truth of the WHOLE God of scripture, not just theism.

If God revealed to us that he had made pink elephants, what do we do with that? Surely, the entire bible needs to be presupposed in order to make reality intelligible, but would the lack of pink elephants make such a presupposition difficult? ( I know I'm bordering on actually departing from the presuppositionalist perspective into the evidentialist camp )

So if the atheist that I am emailing ends up agreeing that the God of the bible is the necessary presupposition for such a theory, but still sees so much evidence for evolution that he decides it is also necessary to believe in evolution, then what? He is obviously not believing in the God of the bible, because Jehovah created creation.

To turn it into a broader question: what if (keep in mind, this is hypothetical) we knew that morality, logic, and science presupposed the God of the bible, but we found incredible evidence that mount Ararat never existed, evolution is true, egypt never enslaved the israelites, there was never such a place as Jerusalem, etc.? In other words, WHAT IF our reality spoke against the bible in many &quot;less important&quot; places than the establishment of morality, logic, and science? What would we do then? I ask this question because I could definitely see my atheist friend going there. He may, in the future, grant that certain parts of the Christian God are necessary for intelligibility, but that the evidence in the world necessitates belief in evolution. Again, such a belief would not be in the God of the bible. But what do I do in such a situation?

It **seems** my transcendental argument has run out of steam here, except for the fact that if the whole bible is not presupposed, then we cannot presuppose any of it, and we're back where we started.

Perhaps a brief re-explanation of why me must presuppose the ENTIRE God of the bible would be in order. I feel I have an understanding of why, but I'm having trouble applying it. I also think this because I have difficulty explaining to my evidential apologist friend why we must argue for the existence of the ENTIRE God of scripture in our apologetic efforts. He thinks that we should argue for theism, then parts of Christianity, until we have the whole. I have a hard time coming up with reasons why this shouldn't be our approach, though it isn't my approach. I know that if we aren't arguing for the existence of ALL of the God of Christianity, we aren't arguing for the Christian God at all, but that doesn't have much effect on him.

OK, that's it. Educate away, please.


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## ChristianTrader (May 19, 2004)

Greetings Ken,
I am a new presuppositionalist as well so I am not as confident trying to answer that aspect of your question, but I would like to attempt to help on the evolution evidence aspects. 

Two comments on vestigial organs. First, it is impossible to prove that an organ is useless, for a purpose could be discovered in the future. Second, even if an organ is now useless, why is that considered a strike against recent creation? One view is that this is just an result of fallen creation. Another view is that God just designed in built his creation to survive under various conditions, and the conditions that are necessary to see some organ work are no longer around. 

Here is a nice section on vestigial organs from Answersingenesis: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/vestigialorgans.asp

Next, concerning predecessors of human, the problem that evolutionists do not tell people is that the evidence that they have can always be classified as either an ape or a modern human. They add a lot of hype and belief in their evolutionary system to justify their assertions that they have found a common ancestor.

Hermonta


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## Ianterrell (May 19, 2004)

Well your evidentialist buddy's block-house method is flawed. Once the atheist admits to a kind of general theism he can still at that point get lost in the pagan idols. Proving theism does not necessarily result in proving Christian theism therefore why let up? We have to present all of Christian theism to be consistent anyway the way I see it. Don't lower the standard and let the Holy Spirit empower your work. I think that's the attitude to have. If your atheist friend bows to Christ, but resists some element of Christian theology that does not preclude his having grasped the gospel, you have aimed for the moon as you should, the Spirit took the man into space which is excellent.

We are required to present all of Christian theism. We are to &quot;defend the faith&quot;. I think for the Christian apologist the fath must be presented as a whole. Reality does not terminate on the opinions of your opponent it terminates on God's thoughts. Go to the root of the issue, this man is biased against the God of scripture. His biases determine how he is interpreting his facts. What grounds does he have for upholding his interpretation of reality, and defending his finite and corrupted intelligence? His responsiblity is to think like God.

It's really begging the question to ask &quot;what if our reality does not match up with the reality described in the bible.&quot; This has been the problematic question in the church since the enlightenment. Could it be that 1) We have mis-interpreted the bible based on poor interpretation. 2)We have misinterpreted nature to contradict divine revelation. One of these two is always the case in the mind of a consistent Christian. Again reality terminates with the God of the covenant, his book of the covenant presents God's interpretation of reality. We as creatures must bow to that authority and forsake the god of our reasoning.

Hope that helps.


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## Scott (May 19, 2004)

Ian:

A couple of thoughts.

[1] There are a couple of different levels at which you can engage you friend. You can engage at the presuppositional level or at the evidential level. Both approaches are consistent with presuppositional apologetics. 

[2] To approach him at the presuppositional level regarding evolution, you would take an approach like this. You don't even need to engage the details of evolution. 

Acknowledge that your friend believes in evolution and then drill down about how he came to hold this belief. You want to find out what tools he is using to justify his belief. These tools likely include logic, empirical observation, scientific authority (he likely did not conduct experiements himself), etc. Then, you need to say, what worldview makes these tools operable? 

For example, they are clearly inoperable in terms of Eastern pantheism, which expressly reject logic, empirical studies, etc. Further, you can demonstrate that they are inoperable in terms of athetism. I would look to Bahnsen's stuff on this. 

[3] You could approach him at an evidential level and show how his view of is wrong. For example, see the work of the Intelligent Design movement on this.

[4] Regarding your question about what if reality does not match up with the Bible, it is important to understand this question's presuppositions. It presupposes that the question itself is intelligible outside of a Christian worldview. What worldview would this be?

You are steping into a sort of meta-worldview on which you are becoming the (unintentional) judge of the Christian view. 

In this case, this meta worldview faces all of the presupositionalism brings to any worldview.

Scott


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## Ianterrell (May 19, 2004)

Scott,

I think you meant to address Ken. Good post though.


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## cupotea (May 19, 2004)

Scott-
Thanks! I didn't think of presuppositionally refuting the tools that an atheist uses to arrive at his belief in evolution.

So it kind of goes like this, then: we have to presuppose the existence of Jehovah before arriving at the validity of evolution. But, if Jehovah is presupposed, then evolution is false, anyway, otherwise Jehovah wasn't presupposed.

I was kind of getting at this: what if this atheist grants that those parts of Jehovah's character that allow logic, science, and morality must be presupposed, but still thinks that the theory of evolution, arrived at with only those particular presuppositions, still makes more sense than creation? In other words, what do I do with someone who grants that parts of Jehovah's character are necessary presuppositions, but still thinks that theistic evolution makes more sense than creationism?


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## Ianterrell (May 19, 2004)

Ken,

If this person concedes to the necessity of divine revelation from there a good criticism of the theistic evolution postion is in order followed by a representation of the creation position I think. I'm not sure about the best way to present that arguement though.


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## Puritan Sailor (May 20, 2004)

So Paul, would you say then that an Arminian could not use the presuppositional method?


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## BobVigneault (May 20, 2004)

[Edited on 5-20-2004 by maxdetail]


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## JohnV (May 20, 2004)

Bob:
Up until the last sentence of your post I thought that you had posted in the wrong thread. It may still be, but I am glad that you posted in this discussion, for I am in deep gratitude to you that you put Paul and I together like that, along with yourself. If we are going to work out differences in opinions about certain things, our brotherhood and common interest must be kept in mind, and valued.


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## Puritan Sailor (May 20, 2004)

[quote:d55f426218][i:d55f426218]Originally posted by Paul manata[/i:d55f426218]
Not consistantly. The reformed doctrine of the soveriegnty of God and election/ predestination is a key point in presuppositional apologetics. Covenant theology is a key point to presuppositional apologetics. Total depravity is a very big point in presuppositional apologetics.

I hope that someone doesn't take my baptism issue to far. It is on the back burner..but hopefully one day I want to show how paedobaptism has a transcendental necessity about it.

If you have Van Til's &quot;Defense Of The Faith&quot; read his section on Mr. Black, Mr. Grey, and mr. White. There you can see that the presupp method is the reformed method.
[/quote:d55f426218]
I've read that book by Van Til but I think I'll read it again. But you answered my question. Arminians could do it though inconsistently.


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## Don (Jan 20, 2005)

Paul, 

I thought I would spice up the room a bit. I tried out your epistemological refutation of evolution and here's the response I got: 


"Did you get ahold of some "Apologetics for Idiots" book? 

I read so much of your stuff and it is someone's attempt to defend their faith with logic or something altogether too clever to come from Christianity... 

Ack. This argument is so wrong on so many levels. It is a logic nightmare and proves NOTHING! You have no critical thinking that even comes out....just more of this type of sophomoric "neener neenerspeak". 

Blind and Random Processes Created us so it follows we come from Blind and Random Processes- yes this is pretty circular. 

Why trust it? Because it works. You are arguing mixing existential nihlist determinism with the question of where our thoughts come from and the nature of the mind....choose one thing to be mistaken about at a time please. 

Otherwise your argument sounds like this: 

Your god created a world but caused great pain, suffering in it and made mistakes everywhere. He also made you and your brain. Would you trust your broken gods handiwork? Seen Thailand or Indonesia lately? 

But I forget, whe it works out Glory Be to God. But when it is a wreck it is the fault of Satan or Man's own eeeeeeeevil nature."

[Edited on 20-1-2005 by Don]


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## luvroftheWord (Jan 20, 2005)

> Why trust it? Because it works. You are arguing mixing existential nihlist determinism with the question of where our thoughts come from and the nature of the mind....choose one thing to be mistaken about at a time please.



It "works"? It works to do what? It certainly doesn't work for making things like science and logic intelligible. But this kind of pragmatism is only justified if the person can justify the ends that it is working toward. But we can only guess what these ends are, since this person didn't specify.

And be sure to ask this person what is wrong with what happened in southeast Asia, since those "people" (more like sacs of protoplasm) don't have any value anyway. The problem of evil is a problem for the atheist, not the Christian.

[Edited on 20-1-2005 by luvroftheWord]


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## Don (Jan 20, 2005)

Yeah we've had the problem of evil discussion. Thanks to Paul, Bahnsen, and Van Til (and of course God) he disappeared from that thread!


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## Don (Jan 20, 2005)

Here is my prelim response. Let me know if I should change/edit/add: 

"Did you get ahold of some "Apologetics for Idiots" book?" 

ha such a funny guy

"I read so much of your stuff and it is someone's attempt to defend their faith with logic or something altogether too clever to come from Christianity... "

and"¦.? 

"Ack. This argument is so wrong on so many levels. It is a logic nightmare and proves NOTHING! You have no critical thinking that even comes out....just more of this type of sophomoric "neener neenerspeak"."

It is wrong? And by what standards do you judge it wrong? The laws of logic? What are the laws of logic and how are they justified in a "buddhistic secular humanistic" worldview?  Are the laws of the logic the same everywhere? Do they evolve? If so, then there has been a time when A and ~A exist at the same time since the law of noncontradiction had to evolve as well. Are they contingent upon different cultures? If so, then they are not universal and contradictions exist. If naturalistic processes caused everything, then the laws of logic do not exist as they are not natural in character since natural objects have particularity and location. 


"Blind and Random Processes Created us so it follows we come from Blind and Random Processes- yes this is pretty circular."


Umm is that not the assumption of evolution? All you are saying is that evolutionists argue in a circle. 


"Why trust it? Because it works."


Wow. Good pragmatic answer. Maybe I should say speak up. Then the question becomes - how do we know it works (what criteria are used) and why does it work? Because Acumentor says so? Does the end justify the means? 

Or maybe the convo should go like this: "Why be a Christian? Because Christians are right." 

"You are arguing mixing existential nihlist determinism with the question of where our thoughts come from and the nature of the mind....choose one thing to be mistaken about at a time please."


Huh? It's an epistemological question as to reasons why someone would believe in evolution. No I am arguing that if our thoughts come from our brain which is a product of blind random irrational processes which in turn would make our thoughts irrational. What would now make the thoughts coming from our brain rational so that I can assume evolution is rational? Better yet, what is the substance of a thought? How do they arise out of naturalistic processes?

If our thoughts are deterministic in nature, then that would be the cause of our belief in evolution not the reason. If this is the case then we believe evolution 'just because' and not because we actually have reasoned it to be true. And I would believe in creation "just because" as well. But to debate about it means that we are free to draw inferences and that assumes my worldview. Thus if our thoughts are deterministic in nature, to debate means you lose. 


"Otherwise your argument sounds like this: 

Your god created a world but caused great pain, suffering in it and made mistakes everywhere. He also made you and your brain. Would you trust your broken gods handiwork? Seen Thailand or Indonesia lately? 

But I forget, whe it works out Glory Be to God. But when it is a wreck it is the fault of Satan or Man's own eeeeeeeevil nature."


First I guess I should tell you that I am a Calvinist (I don´t know if you know what we believe). However, for now, the very problem you have posed assumes that pain and suffering are evil. How is this justified from your "œbuddhistic secular humanistic" worldview? It's my worldview that allows us to say that these things are bad (per our discussion elsewhere).



[Edited on 20-1-2005 by Don]

[Edited on 20-1-2005 by Don]


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## crhoades (Jan 20, 2005)

nah, stick with "neener,neener." 
good reply.


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## Don (Jan 20, 2005)

I went ahead and posted what I typed last night. But you always make things sound so much better! If I only had patience!

I feel as though everytime I type anything to do with presuppositional apologetics I should put a footnote and say, "see Paul Manata or Greg Bahnsen for further discussion" esp since all I do is rehash! 

One thing I've tried not to do is not to return insult for insult and attempt to be as humble as possible - even though I really want to "go off" sometimes. One thing Bahnsen said that sticks out in my mind is that sometimes we may have to lose an argument in order to win - something to that nature. I think it was on the midlevel course in apologetics. Its hard not to let my ego get involved! I think this has made a big difference with some of the reactions of the participants involved.


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