Autonomously reasoning to the rationality of presuppositionalism

The only proper way to reason with someone that they cannot reason without God is to appeal to the fact that all men presuppose the existence of God (whether they admit it or not) in order to account for their a priori knowledge that contradictions are wrong, or that all things must be in a logical relationship with each other. So, this is actually an appeal to their conscience. The atheistic worldview cannot account for the presupposition of rationality, so they must presuppose the existence of God. In other words, there is no reason to think anyone would insist on rationality, unless they presuppose the existence of God -- which all men do.

 

There is a difference between using reason and the epistemological foundations for reasoning. The unbeleiver attempts to base reasoning on someother foundation than being made in God's image. They refuse to aknowledge that while at the same time using it.

 

This is similar to the point that the transcendental arguments are themselves presenting the unbeliever with a form of evidence, and thus presuppositional apologetics is a form of evidential apologetics. Maybe someone can comment on this.

 

I am inclined to say that an equivocation is taking place here. In "reasoning with someone," "reasoning" means the presentation of arguments; in "cannot reason without God," "reason" means the use of the faculty of reason. On the basis of this equivocation I would say there is nothing genuinely contradictory which needs explanation.

It is not a form of "evidence" in the technical sense of that term as it is used to describe "evidential" apologetics. No "proof" is being offered for the existence of God but a clarification of the conditions necessary for establishing "proof" of any kind. One might think of a court of law, in which testimony, evidence, and arguments are presented to establish a case, but it makes not the slightest difference in the world if the court has no authority to justify or condemn. Evidential apologetics works on the level of presenting testimony, evidence, and arguments, whereas presuppositional apologetics works on the level of what constitutes the authority of the court.

 

It is an indirect argument for the existance of God. In the traditional "proofs" God's existance is directly being argued for. In a transcendental argument you are indirectly arguing for his existance. Evidences are useful but have inherent limitations they only prove so much. I can give you all sorts of evidences that the bible is accurate to the original documents but that only proves that bible is accurate to the original documents, nothing more.

Transcendental arguments can be applied to anything. They argue for the neccessary preconditions for anything that we experience to make sense at all. We all use science and assume everyday but what is neccessary in for science to be as it is? We would say God obviously.

 

James gave a great concise definition of the transcendental argument. Let me put it more in laymen terms. The transcendental argument asks the question, "What must be true for something else to exist?" We do not appeal for someone to reason the existence of God, we proclaim God and inform the person that he has already assumed God whether he realizes it or not. Logic, as an essential property of God must also be assumed. Hence, you don't really have to appeal to the opponents reason, you simply let him know that as soon as he agreed to debate... he lost the debate.

He's lost because he assumes logic and that necessitates the mind of God. He's lost because he assumes that one argument can be BETTER than another. How can that be? How can we have a basis for BETTER or GOOD or BAD in a naturalist universe - the universe doesn't care. He's also lost because he scheduled to debate and therefore assumes the uniformity of time. In a random universe there is no basis for uniformity which is the fundamental principle of science.

There you have it, the Christian theist is the only one who can give a basis for and justify morality and ethics, for science (uniformity) and logic.

 

You're thinking too hard Will. Logic is a tool, a God given tool, and image of God tool. We assume first that there is a world external to our mind. We also assume that there are other minds. We may now reason that there is a transcendent mind and we assume that the God of the Bible is that transcendent mind and he reveals himself in his Word. We follow his revealed will to proclaim the Gospel to others and we believe that His Spirit will quicken the mind, the soul of the hearer. It is not our responsibility to determine if we are appealing to the hearers will, it is our duty to proclaim the Gospel and the apostolic message. There is no need to get bogged down in the mechanics of logic. We proclaim the Gospel and God adjusts the cognitive elements in the hearer.

 

Can you support this claim, that logic is an essential property of God, from Scripture?

 

Yes. Hebrews 6:17,18 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

God cannot lie, for him to do so would violate the law of non-contradiction. Is God subject to the law of non-contradiction? No. Logical thought is to think God's thoughts after him. Logic, truth must be an essential property of God because of the impossible of the contrary.

 

Douglas,
Check out his article...
The Trinity Foundation - God and Logic
Jim

 

Bob,
would you define logic as truth? Also, what is your definition of truth?

 

Truth would be the property of propositions that relates to the way things are or what is, reality. Logic gives us the laws we use to measure whether a truth statement is true or false. Both logic and truth are dependent on the transcendency of God.

 

Will, I was a bit tongue and cheek when I said "you're thinking too hard". I am humbled by your systematic train of thought. I tend to be more colloquial and devotional in my treatment of topics which makes me a great teacher for the newbie but when it comes to the technical aspects I have trouble keeping the terms straight.

When I am 'making my appeal', every thing I say has the purpose of bringing the conversation to a place where I can proclaim the Gospel. I will dismiss the hearers argument quickly by using the transcendental argument and then proclaim the Gospel. In other words, my appeal is not to the autonomous logic of the unbeliever, but to the Holy Spirit and that moment where God will quicken the unbeliever and he will be granted repentance.

I don't believe in autonomous logic. The unbeliever is not free in his logic but instead uses a logic that is veiled by sin (Romans 1). Using natural revelation, God has given each of us enough understanding to know that we are condemned so I will appeal to the unbelievers logic on that point and take into consideration the noetic effects of sin.

The unbeliever is going to try and use evidence and say "let's look at the evidence and see where it leads us". I am going to use logic to demonstrate that 'evidence' does not lead and that all evidence must be interpreted. He will understand this. Once he sees that our perception of objective knowledge is actually subjective (dependent on our worldview) then I will work the conversation toward a proclamation of the Gospel.

 

I have not read all the above but just wanted to remind the OPer that the classic presuppositionalist claim is that all autonomy/neutrality is pretended. The problem with the evidentialist is that he makes an appeal to the reason of the unbeliever as if the unbeliever were autonomous in his reasoning. The unbeliever claims to be. But we know, in fact, that all reasoning is done either in covenant obedience or disobedience and the unbeliever's problem is that his unbelief/disobedience renders him a fool, ultimately, though he may be, proximately, brilliant.

The unbeliever does not reason autonomously. This is the mistake of both him and the evidentialist. He reasons rebelliously. To be a consistent presuppositionalist, we tell the unbeliever this and that he can reason rightly only by the regenerating work of the Spirit. We tell him that this is God's world and that he cannot reason without Him. We don't ask him to use his reason to see this so much as we tell him the truth to which he is called and to which he must accede, which we understand can only be done by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit.

We don't invite the believer to sit as God's judge. We tell the unbeliever that God is his judge and that he should yield to Him. Part of what he needs to see is that without God, he cannot reason, affirm love, morality, etc. In other words, God is the indispensible precondition of the intelligibility of reason, the laws of logic, science, morality, etc. But we are not putting this before him for him to judge. We are declaring the truth for him to accept. And we, again, know that only those in whom the Spirit works will receive/accept the truth/Truth which/who alone saves.

If he were autonomous, he could not even hear our appeal. Because he is not, we can tell him that he is not and call him to repent for the pretense that He is. As a part of it, we can tell him that if there were no God, nothing would make sense and because that statement makes sense, it is self-refuting. We are still not asking him to put God in the dock but reminding him that he is in the dock before God.

Peace,
Alan

 

We are, ontologically, reasoning creatures. We cannot not reason. We may reason wrongly, rebelliously, poorly, and so forth, but we cannot escape reasoning.

Fallen, unregenerate man, especially when it comes to ultimate questions, misuses his reason. But that does not mean that we do not call upon him rightly to use his reason, understanding all the while that he never will unless the Spirit enables him to. We are not asking him to engage in autonomous reason. We are asking him to repent and to think God's thoughts after him. We are calling upon him to trust the Lord.

If you press your objection, it would also apply to the preaching of the gospel. How can we call upon unregenerate sinners to repent and believe, since they can only do so by the Spirit? We preach the gospel, and reason (Van Tilian presuppositionalists do not see apologetics as pre-evangelism) with unbelievers, all with a view to repentance and faith. I have no interest in convincing someone of a philosophical position. The fact is that only conversion will enable the unbeliever truly to see the point.

So, think of it this way, when I call upon an unbeliever to repent and believe, am I granting his autonomy (or conceding to Arminianism or full Pelagianism)? No, both when I seek to get him to reason and when I preach the gospel it is in a context in which I am making it clear that no man comes unto Him unless the Father who sent Him draws him. This approach to apologetics is simply consistent Calvinism, recognizing that we are to be Calvinists not only soterically but also epistemically. So I do apologetics and preach in a way that recognizes that man is not autonomous and God is sovereign. And yet, man is responsible. Man is responsible to reason rightly and to repent and believe. That he lacks the ability to do so does not negate his responsibility. This is what keeps us in prayer, asking the Lord to open hearts and change lives.

Peace,
Alan

 

Will,

I have not failed to understand your original post or what you write above. The quandry that you have put yourself in is quite clear to me (I agree with much of what my fellows have written above, especially the attempt of Rev. Winzer to reason with you).

Your quandry means not only that we cannot engage in apologetics with the unconverted but preach the gospel to the unconverted. You note that an unbeliever can only reason as an unbeliever before he submits himself to the truth. I agree. But it is in our pressing the truth apologetically and in gospel preaching that the Lord is often pleased to open the eyes to see and receive our argument. But we don't refrain from preaching to them because they have not yet evidenced such an opening. We preach (and I do not see apologetics--nor does Greg Bahnsen--as materially distinct from preaching) and in so doing tell our subject that he is not a fit judge of what is preached as an unbeliever but must yield to its truth. Yes, he must do so as he uses right reason, which he lacks in unbelief and which only the Spirit can give him.

Another point frequently made by Bahnsen is that we engage in proof not persuasion. The two-pronged approach--defending the faith from within the faith and the internal critique of unbelief--constitute proof, demonstrating the impossibility of the contrary, establishing that without the Ontological Trinity and the Self-Attesting Christ of Scripture all is rendered nonsense and that with Him all is established. All of this is being presented to a creature who, though fallen, retains the broader marks of being created in imago dei (personality, spirituality, rationality, morality, authority, creativity--PE Hughes), a creature who either will continue to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (and we call him on this) or not.

Logic, used abstractly, magisterially, not ministerially, will land you where you are, not only in the quandry that you propose, but in a host of other cases, including the attempts to comprehend the incomprehensible. We must yield to revelation: the Bible tells us both that man is utterly dependent and never autonomous (though he pretends in his rebellion as if he is) and that the gospel is to be preached to all men, indiscriminately, even though many hearts are closed and will remain closed. I guess what I am saying is that your quandry, if you continue to maintain it, is a quandry with much of the Bible, far greater than "how can we make an apologetic appeal without affirming the pretended autonomy of unbelieving man?"

Peace,
Alan

 

If I understand this, it is as if the presupposionalist is like the Calvanist that tells an unbeliever that they cannot believe the gospel unless God regenerates them.

 

I have found that to understand autonomy better examples serve better than abstract statments. Lets say that an atheist tells you that they do not believe in God because of the problem of evil. I mean why would a loving God allow such to take place if they are powerful enough to stop it? What this question is really about is what is a good reason for God to permit evil? You see autonomy is not about "starting with yourself" it is about making your self god. This question for instances assumes, or presuposses, that unless we can know and understand God's reason for allowing evil than it doesn't make sense at all.

Human beings are basically putting God on trial and invoking the almighty god of reason to deny that he exists. But why does God owe us any explinations at all? Why must he answer to us on any subject whatsoever? He doesn't. That is autonomy, assuming that we are god instead of him. It is not accepting our own limitaions, along with reason's, as creatures. God owes us nothing and we owe him everything, not the other way around. Sproul and the other authors of Classical Apologetics simply misunderstand Van Til.

They view VT's argument as a direct argument where our starting premise is "God exists" and then they correctly deduce from there how impossible it is to get to where VT said to go, the truth of christianity. VT's point was much more subtle than that. He simply pointed us to the truth that christian theism is true no matter what. Hence the impossibility of the contrary, that is it is impossible fo any worldview other than christianity to be true period. So it is more about presupossing christian theism rather than simply that God exists.

---------- Post added at 11:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 AM ----------

Well it is more that the unbeleiver is using the image of God to try to misinterpet creation as something other than creation while resisting the common grace of God. They have no reason whatsoever to deny the truth of christianity but are attempting to anyway. The irony that Van Til pointed to was that it is because christianity is true that the unbeleiver can do anything whatsover, including their own rebellion. Now proving these things logically is more complicated but it is ironic never the less.

 

Lets look at it this way there is the true worldview, christian, and everyother false view, unbeleiving (Atheist, Buddhist, Agnostic, Muslim, etc...). The benchmark for a worldview is explaining reality as we experience it. It is not worldview verse worldview, it is worldview verses reality. If creation is creation can anyother worldview truthfully explain it other than christianity?

 

Well than your thought is correct. A god of our own design is no different than us being god.