# a presupossitional reforming of the cosmological argument.



## jwright82 (Feb 10, 2010)

I will assume that everyone is familar with the cosmological argument so I won't restate it. I have been thinking a lot about what a good presupossitional reforming of this classic argument would be like. so here goes.

Instead of seeking to arrange a direct argument for some general theistic god why don't just go to the heart of the matter and look at the cosmological problem, or explaining the exsistance of the universe. If we view it this way than we can compare different worldviews with the christian worldview and show that no other worldview can consistantly explain reality, as we experiance it, and that only the christian worldview can explain reality, as we experiance it.

This method will at least force both sides to have to come up with an answer to the question, so it eliminates one side doing all the arguing and the other just denying. Also the burden of proof falls on both sides and not just one. How about an example.

I recently read an essay, I don't remember the name but it came from the book The New Humanism I believe that is the title. In this essay the scientist admited that most scientists believe that the universe had a beggining in time once. He goes to try to argue for a cyclical view of the universe( big bang at beggining, big compression at end, repeat for infinity). He admited that the 2nd law of thermodynamics, that the overall disorder in the universe will increase until it maxs out, was the real problem for any view of the universe that does not believe that it had a beggining in time once. 
So he procceded to argue that we should just view entropy, the amount of disorder in the universe, as being at the same time and in the same relationship maxed out and increasing. This is a contradiction, the best the atheistic worldview can come up, in my opinion, is a contradiction, essentially nonsense or pure irationality. this is a deep problem for a wordview that goes around shouting that they are the only rational worldview around!

The christian worldview does not have this problem, by virtue of assuming the biblical creator we can make sense out of what reality tells us, namley that the universe had a beggining in time once and it will have an end once. The in's and out's of this argument can be debated for sure, but I find that working from a general picture to the particulars is a better way to do things. I readly cocede that this is not in the traditional argument format, but it does get the point accross. So please post any questions or comments, and if something i said doesn't make sense than just let me know, remember I am advocating a broad method for handling this sort of argument not a polished perfect ready for all situations syllogism.


----------



## rbcbob (Feb 10, 2010)

For clarification, are you proposing arguing *from* empirical evidence of the cosmos *to* the Self Revealing God of the Christian Scriptures?


----------



## jwright82 (Feb 10, 2010)

rbcbob said:


> For clarification, are you proposing arguing *from* empirical evidence of the cosmos *to* the Self Revealing God of the Christian Scriptures?


 It depends on what you mean exactaly? I am starting with a problem that must be explained by an individual's worldview. The use of empirical evidence is not the foundation of my argument, but if somoene proposes to explain reality in such a way that contradicts empirical evidence, which I believe I've shown, than their worldview doesn't hold water. Van Til never forbade the use evidences only that we use them in the right context, like not as our foundation but kind off an ammendment to our argument like bacon bits on a potato it completes the meal. In Augustine's days they had to take it on faith the universe had one begining in time and will have one end in time, now a days with the advancement of science we know the universe had a beggining in time. So for centuries the church held to this belief in faith because they were, at least here, apealing to the bible as their ultimate authority in all matters despite what the pagans were arguing about the infinity of time. 

Now we know the universe had a begining in time, so that raises a problem that we must explain. My argument is that only the christian worldview can explain it, over and against every other unbelieving worldview. Does that help at all? I hope, let me know if i need to clarify anything else, including this post. Great question though!


----------



## SolaSaint (Feb 11, 2010)

James,

You stated your point well in this second post. I agree, it seems now with all the advancements in science that the Cosmological argument becomes easier for the Christian worldview defense. I also believe as time marches on evidential apologetics becomes more clear, for archaeology has truly become the friend of Christianity over the past two centuries.


----------



## jwright82 (Feb 11, 2010)

SolaSaint said:


> James,
> 
> You stated your point well in this second post. I agree, it seems now with all the advancements in science that the Cosmological argument becomes easier for the Christian worldview defense. I also believe as time marches on evidential apologetics becomes more clear, for archaeology has truly become the friend of Christianity over the past two centuries.


 Yeah I agree with your post, one area of Van Til's thought I was never the most comfortable with was his strong criticism of the traditional aproech, there are some areas that I think are weak. Now don't get me wrong I believe his aproech to be the most effective and biblical aproech out there but I have never wished to get into long debates with traditionalists, if God chooses to use anyform of apologetics to acomplish his will than that is His divine right. I do have some reservations about Reformed Epistomology, but I feel that I have not done the necessary study to rule either way. 

Van Til wanted us as apologests to look at evidences from a proper perspective. So the essential diference between the two schools of thought are this:

1. For the traditional evedentiary aproech empirical evidence is the foundation of their argument, which although can be effective can never really arive at absolute proof of the christian worldview *on its own*! This is because of a pesky problem in all sciences that philosophers refer to as the problem of induction. Just because every time in my life that I droped something it fell to the ground, there is no scientific guarantee that the next time I drop it it will go down instead of up. This not as much a problem for archaeology, but archaeology can be very subjective in fact has more to do with presupossitions of the archeologists than a lot of other sciences.

2. The presupossitional aproech uses the presupossitional method of argumentation as the foundation and evidences come in in a secondary role. Van Til remarked, my paraphrase, every single inch of the universe verifies the christian worldview in fact the scientist cannot make sense about the universe without the christian worldview being assumed on a sort of subconcious level. This of course brings tension to their other sort of subconcious assumption that they are god.


----------

