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Presuppositional apologetics

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Presuppositionalism is a school of Christian apologetics that believes the Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation and attempts to expose flaws in other worldviews. It claims that apart from presuppositions, one could not make sense of any human experience, and there can be no set of neutral assumptions from which to reason with a non-Christian.[1] Presuppositionalists claim that a Christian cannot consistently declare his belief in the necessary existence of the God of the Bible and simultaneously argue on the basis of a different set of assumptions that God may not exist and Biblical revelation may not be true.[2][not in citation given] Two schools of presuppositionalism exist, based on the different teachings of Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Haddon Clark. Presuppositionalism contrasts with classical apologetics and evidential apologetics.
Presuppositionalists compare their presupposition against other ultimate standards such as reason, empirical experience, and subjective feeling, claiming presupposition in this context is:

a belief that takes precedence over another and therefore serves as a criterion for another. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition… This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of God in the area of human thought. It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing.[3]
Critics of presuppositional apologetics claim that it is logically invalid because it begs the question of the truth of Christianity and the non-truth of other worldviews.


Contents  [hide]
1 Comparison with other schools of apologetics
2 History
3 Varieties 3.1 Van Tillian presuppositionalism
3.2 Clarkian presuppositionalism
4 See also
5 Notes 5.1 References
5.2 Bibliography
6 External links 6.1 Debates utilizing a presuppositional approach
6.2 Debates and discussions on apologetic method


Comparison with other schools of apologetics[edit]
Presuppositionalists contrast their approach with the other schools of Christian apologetics by describing the others as assuming that the world is intelligible apart from belief in the existence of God and then arguing on purportedly neutral grounds to support trusting the Christian Scriptures and the existence of God. Specifically, presuppositionalists describe Thomistic (also "Traditional" or "Classical") apologetics as concentrating on the first aspect of apologetics with its logical proofs for the existence of God, simply assuming common ground with the non-Christian and utilizing a piece-by-piece methodology. In this scheme, the common foundation of neutral brute facts leads to a generic concept of deity, then to the various characteristics of the Christian God as revealed in Scripture, and so forth. Piece-by-piece, Christian theology is built up from a neutral common ground.
Presuppositionalists assert that many of the classical arguments are logically fallacious, or do not prove enough, when used as arguments to prove the existence or character of God.[a] They criticize both the assumption of neutrality and the "block house" or "piecemeal" method for failing to start at the level of the controlling beliefs of worldviews and implicitly allowing non-Christian assumptions from the start, thereby trying to build a Christian "house" on a non-Christian "foundation".[5][6] Evidentialists demur from this assessment, claiming that presuppositionalism amounts to fideism because it rejects a neutral starting point for reasoning between the Christian and non-Christian.
The conclusion of evidential apologetics is that the Bible is probably more accurate about what it reports than not, thus the whole of Biblical revelation is probably true, and where we don't have absolute certainty we must accept the most probable theory.[7][8] The goal of presuppositional apologetics on the other hand, is to argue that the assumptions and actions of non-Christians require them to believe certain things about God, man and the world which they claim they do not believe. This type of argument is technically called a reductio ad absurdum in that it attempts to reduce the opposition to holding an absurd, i.e. contradictory position; in this case, both believing in facts of Christian revelation (in practice) and denying them (in word). So in essence, evidential apologetics attempts to build from a common starting point in neutral facts, while presuppositional apologetics attempts to claim all facts for the Christian worldview as the only framework in which they are intelligible.[9]
History[edit]
The modern origins of presuppositional apologetics are in the work of Dutch theologian Cornelius Van Til, a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, who began to adopt a presuppositional approach to defending the truth of his faith as early as the late 1920s.[10][page needed] Van Til personally disliked the term "presuppositional", as he felt it misrepresented his approach to apologetics, which he felt was focused primarily on the preeminence of the Bible as the ultimate criterion for truth, rather than denying or ignoring evidence. He did, however, accept the label reluctantly, given that it was a useful way of distinguishing between those who deny a neutral basis for apologetics and those who do not. His student, Greg Bahnsen, aided in some of the later developments of Van Tillian Presuppositionalism, and the Bahnsen Theological Seminary continues to promote presuppositional apologetics in its curriculum. John Frame, another student of Van Til, also continues to advocate a presuppositional approach, although he is generally more critical of Van Til's thought than Bahnsen was.[11][page needed] Bahnsen's protégé, Michael R. Butler, has also been active in advancing the field. Among his contributions is a technical, metalogical study of transcendental arguments in general and the Transcendental argument for the existence of God in particular, which he wrote for Bahnsen's festschrift.[12]
By 1952, presuppositional apologetics had acquired a new advocate in the Presbyterian theologian Gordon Clark.[13][page needed] He embraced the label "presuppositional" since his approach to apologetics, emphasizing the priority of epistemology and an axiom of revelation, was more closely concerned with the logical order of assumptions than was Van Til. The differences between the two views on presuppositionalism, though few in number, caused a significant rift between the two men, and even after both Clark and Van Til had died, John Robbins (a theologian and former student of Clark's) and Bahnsen were often involved in heated exchanges.[14][15][16]
In a 2000 book outlining the major schools of apologetics, the presuppositional approach was given equal time alongside other schools of thought (the "classical" and "evidential" noted above, for example).[17][page needed] In general, Van Til's approach is far more popular and widespread than Clark's.
Varieties[edit]
Van Tillian presuppositionalism[edit]

 

 Cornelius Van Til
Apologists who follow Van Til earned the label "presuppositional" because of their central tenet that the Christian must at all times presuppose the supernatural revelation of the Bible as the ultimate arbiter of truth and error in order to know anything. Christians, they say, can assume nothing less because all human thought presupposes the existence of the God of the Bible.[18] They claim that by accepting the assumptions of non-Christians, which fundamentally deny the Trinitarian God of the Bible, one could not even formulate an intelligible argument. Though Van Tillians do, at one point, "put themselves in the shoes" of the opponent, "for the sake of argument", to demonstrate where that position would lead, they claim that they can only do so because this is actually God's world, and man is actually God's creature, made in God's own image, and as such can never completely shut God out (in living or thinking)—hence there is always a common basis for dialogue, even though it is, in the presuppositionalist's view, a basis which the opponent is not usually willing to acknowledge and which is decidedly biased rather than neutral.
According to Frame, "[Van Til's] major complaints against competing apologetic methods are theological complaints, that is, that they compromise the incomprehensibility of God, total depravity, the clarity of natural revelation, God's comprehensive control over creation, and so on."[19][page needed] Within their presuppositionalist framework, Van Tillians do often utilize foundational concepts for Thomistic and Evidentialist arguments (belief in the uniformity of natural causes, for example), but they are unwilling to grant that such beliefs are justifiable on "natural" (neutral) grounds. Rather, Van Tillians employ these beliefs, which they justify on Biblical grounds, in the service of transcendental arguments, which are a sort of meta-argument about foundational principles, necessary preconditions, in which the non-Christian's worldview is shown to be incoherent in and of itself and intelligible only because it borrows capital from the Christian worldview. For example, where evidentialists would take the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system as a neutral common starting point and construct a cosmological argument for an unmoved mover, Van Tillian presuppositionalists would ask for a justification for the belief in the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, given the worldview of the opponent, attempting to show that such a belief presupposes the Christian worldview and is ultimately incompatible with the opposing worldview.[b] Van Til summarized the main drive of his apologetic by saying: "the only proof for the existence of God is that without God you couldn't prove anything."
Van Tillians also stress the importance of reckoning with "the noetic effects of sin" (that is, the effects of sin on the mind), which, they maintain, corrupt man's ability to understand God, the world, and himself aright. In their view, as a fallen creature, man does know the truth in each of these areas, but he seeks to find a different interpretation—one in which, as C. S. Lewis said, he is "on the bench" and God is "in the dock."[21][page needed] The primary job of the apologist is, therefore, simply to confront the unbeliever with the fact that, while he is verbally denying the truth, he is nonetheless practically behaving in accord with it. Van Til illustrated this alleged inconsistency as a child, elevated on the father's knee, reaching up to slap his face, and Bahnsen used the analogy of a man breathing out air to make the argument that air doesn't exist.[22][23]
Another important aspect of the Van Tillian apologetical program is the distinction between proof and persuasion. According to the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, man has ample proof in all of creation of God's existence and attributes but chooses to suppress it.[24] Van Til likewise claimed that there are valid arguments to prove that the God of the Bible exists but that the unbeliever would not necessarily be persuaded by them because of his suppression of the truth, and therefore the apologist, he said, must present the truth regardless of whether anyone is actually persuaded by it (Frame notes that the apologist is here akin to the psychiatrist who presents the truth about the paranoid's delusions, trusting that his patient knows the truth at some level and can accept it—though Frame, as a Calvinist, would say the special intervention of God in the Holy Spirit is also required for the unbeliever to accept ultimate truths.[25][26]) An implication of this position is that all arguments are "person relative" in the sense that one non-Christian might be persuaded by a particular argument and another might not be, depending on their background and experiences; even if the argument constitutes logically valid proof.
Clarkian presuppositionalism[edit]
Gordon Clark and his followers treat the truth of the Scriptures as the axiom of their system. Like all axioms, this axiom is considered to be self-evident truth, not to be proven, but used for proof. However, the worldview that results from the axiom may be tested for consistency and comprehensiveness.[27] Testing for internal contradiction exemplifies Clark's strict reliance on the laws of logic (he famously translates the first verse of the Gospel of John as "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God, and the Logic was God.")[28] Thus, in order to invalidate non-Christian worldviews, one must simply show how a different presupposition results in necessary logical contradictions, while showing that presupposing the Bible leads to no logical contradiction. By contrast, some Van Tillians have suggested that God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture reveals apparent paradoxes.[29]
However, Clark allowed that presupposing axioms (or "first principles") themselves do not make a philosophical system true, including his own; the fact that all worldviews he examined other than Christianity had internal contradictions only made Christianity highly more probable as truth, but not necessarily so.[citation needed] Nonetheless, he believed that this method was effective in many practical cases (when arguing against, for instance, secular humanism or dialectical materialism) and that, in the end, each of us must simply choose (that is, make an informed selection) from among seemingly consistent worldviews the one that most adequately answers life's questions and seems the most internally coherent. Some Van Tillian critics suggest that the concept of coherence itself must be defined in terms of Christian presuppositions but is instead being used by Clark as a "neutral" principle for discerning the truth of any proposition.[citation needed]
Using this approach, Clark labored to expose the contradictions of many worldviews that were in vogue in his day and to defend the Christian worldview by proving its consistency over and against those who attacked it. His unflagging use of logic sometimes led him to what most Reformed theologians consider rather unorthodox ideas on such topics as the problem of evil—topics which are most often treated by theologians as paradoxes or apparent contradictions not resolvable by human logic. But Clark famously rejected the idea that Scripture teaches paradoxes and notion of "apparent contradiction", asking "apparent to whom?". He described an alleged biblical paradox as nothing more than "a charley-horse between the ears that can be eliminated by rational massage."[30]
With regard to other schools of apologetics, Clark suggested that the cosmological argument was not just unpersuasive but also logically invalid (because it begged the question), and he similarly dismissed the other Thomistic arguments.[31] As a staunch critic of all varieties of empiricism, he did not tend to make much use of evidential arguments, which yield likelihoods and probabilities rather than logical certainties (that is, either coherence or incoherence).
See also[edit]
Christian apologetics
Christian existential apologetics
Christian philosophy
Circular reasoning
Evidential apologetics
Fideism
Herman Dooyeweerd
Neo-Calvinism
Rationalism
Total depravity
Transcendental argument for the existence of God
Notes[edit]
a.Jump up ^ However, Thomas Aquinas never speaks of "proofs" for the existence of God per se, and on one reading, his "ways" may be taken as demonstrations of the inner coherence of belief in God, rather than proofs[4][page needed]. Taken in this sense, Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame, et al., have embraced the traditional arguments.
b.Jump up ^ Bahnsen argued that inductive reasoning cannot be justified on an atheistic worldview[20].
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Frame 2006.
2.Jump up ^ Sproul, Gerstner & Lindsley 1984, p. 183.
3.Jump up ^ Frame 1987, p. 45.
4.Jump up ^ McGrath, Alister, The Dawkins Delusion?
5.Jump up ^ van Til 1967, pp. 122–23, 126–29, 131–32.
6.Jump up ^ Bahnsen 1998, pp. 266–68.
7.Jump up ^ Carnell 1948, pp. 113–18.
8.Jump up ^ Frame 1987, pp. 135–36.
9.Jump up ^ van Til 1969, pp. 18–19.
10.Jump up ^ Oliphint 1991.
11.Jump up ^ Fernandes 1997.
12.Jump up ^ Butler 2002, pp. 64–124.
13.Jump up ^ Hoover 1984.
14.Jump up ^ Bahnsen, "Response to Robbins", Journey (CMF now).
15.Jump up ^ Flood, "Response to Bahnsen", Journey (CMF now).
16.Jump up ^ Bahnsen, "Response to Flood", Journey (CMF now).
17.Jump up ^ Frame 2000.
18.Jump up ^ van Til 1967, pp. 351–56.
19.Jump up ^ Frame 1976.
20.Jump up ^ Bahnsen & Stein 1985, p. 27-28.
21.Jump up ^ Lewis 1970.
22.Jump up ^ Schwertley.
23.Jump up ^ Harrison.
24.Jump up ^ Bahnsen 2002, pp. 37–40.
25.Jump up ^ Frame 1995, pp. 413–15.
26.Jump up ^ Frame 1994, pp. 62–3.
27.Jump up ^ The Trinity foundation.
28.Jump up ^ Clark 1998, pp. 115–22.
29.Jump up ^ The Trinity foundation.
30.Jump up ^ Crampton 1990.
31.Jump up ^ Clark 1995, pp. 35–39.
Bibliography[edit]
Bahnsen, Greg L (1998). Van Til's Apologetic: Readings & Analysis. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-098-7.
——— (2002). Booth, Robert R, ed. Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith. Nacogdoches: Covenant. ISBN 0-915815-28-1.
Bahnsen, Christian Greg; Stein, Gordon (1985), The Great Debate: Does God Exist? (PDF) (formal debate), University of California, Irvine: Bellevue Christian.
Butler, Michael (2002). "The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God". In Schlissel, Steven M. The Standard Bearer: A Festschrift for Greg L. Bahnsen. Nacogdoches: Covenant. pp. 64–124.
Carnell, Edward John (1948). An Introduction to Christian Apologetics: A Philosophic Defense of the Trinitarian-Theistic Faith. Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans.
Clark, Gordon Haddon (1995). Religion, Reason, and Revelation (3rd ed.). Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation. ISBN 0-940931-86-9.
——— (1998). A Christian View of Men and Things (3rd ed.). Unicoi: Trinity Foundation. ISBN 1-891777-01-7.
——— (1998b). Logic (3rd ed.). Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation. pp. 115–22. ISBN 0-940931-81-8.
Crampton, W Gary (November–December 1990). "Does the Bible Contain Paradox?". Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation.
Fernandes, Phil (1997), "Cornelius Van Til", Pressupositional Apologetics (doctoral dissertation), Biblical defense.
Frame, John M (1976). Van Til: The Theologian. Reformed. ISBN 0-916034-02-X.
——— (1987). The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Theology of Lordship). Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-262-9.
——— (1994). Apologetics to the Glory of God. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 978-0-87552-243-2.
——— (1995). Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought. Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-220-3.
——— (2000). "Presuppositional Apologetics". In Cowan, Steven B. Five Views on Apologetics. ISBN 0-310-22476-4.
——— (2006). "Presuppositional Apologetics". In Campbell-Jack, WC; McGrath, Gavin J; Evans, C Stephen. New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-2451-9. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
Geehan, ER, ed. (1980). Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til. Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-489-3.
Harrison, James M. "The Presuppositional Apologetic". Gospel outreach. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
Hoover, David P (1984). Gordon Clark's Extraordinary View of Men and Things. ISBN 0-944788-22-X.
Lewis, Clive Staples (1970). God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-0868-9.
Oliphint, K Scott (1991). "Cornelius Van Til and the Reformation of Christian Apologetics". In van der Walt, BJ. Die Idee Van Reformasie: Gister En Vandag.
Schwertley, Brian. "Secular Humanism". Reformed. Archived from the original on 2007-05-04. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
Sproul, RC; Gerstner, John; Lindsley, Arthur (1984). Classical Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. ISBN 978-0-310-44951-5. "A friendly refutation of Cornelius Van Til's presuppositional apologetics."
van Til, Cornelius (1967). The Defense of the Faith. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed.
——— (1969). A Christian Theory of Knowledge. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed.
External links[edit]
Debates utilizing a presuppositional approach[edit]
Ten Bruggencate, Sye; Baird, Paul (March 2011), Presuppositional Apologetics Round 2 (AUDIO FEED) (debate), UK: Premier Christian Radio.
Cheung, Vincent; Sansone, Derek, Biblical Rationalism versus Psycho Assertionism (informal email debate), RMI Web.
Drange, Theodore; Wilson, Douglas, The Drange-Wilson Debate (written debate).
Jones, Doug; Parsons, Keith; Martin, Michael, "Is Non-Christian Thought Futile?", Antithesis (written debate) 2 (4).
Martin, Michael; Frame, John, The Martin-Frame Debate (written debate), Infidels, about the transcendental argument for the existence of God.
Debates and discussions on apologetic method[edit]
Bahnsen, Greg, "A Critique of the Evidentialist Apologetical Method of John Warwick Montgomery", CMF now.
Clark, Gordon Haddon; Hoover, David, Presuppositional or Evidential Apologetics? (MP3) (debate) (25 MB download only).
Erlandson, Doug, "The Resurrection of Thomism", Classical Apologetics 2 (3), Reformed, critiquing Thomistic apologetics.
Frame, John, "Van Til and the Ligonier Apologetic", Westminster Theological Journal (review) on Sproul, Gerstner & Lindsley 1984.
Presuppositionalism vs. Evidentialism (question-and-answer), Creation Ministries International, takes a semi-Clarkian approach to apologetics.
Agnostic asks whether biblical Christians commit circular reasoning: role of axioms, internal consistency and real world application (question-and-answer), Creation Ministries International, semi-Clarkian.
Presuppositional Spaghetti, the Lottery Paradox, and the Search for God, Noble minded, a critique of presuppositionalism.


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Presuppositional apologetics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Presuppositionalism is a school of Christian apologetics that believes the Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation and attempts to expose flaws in other worldviews. It claims that apart from presuppositions, one could not make sense of any human experience, and there can be no set of neutral assumptions from which to reason with a non-Christian.[1] Presuppositionalists claim that a Christian cannot consistently declare his belief in the necessary existence of the God of the Bible and simultaneously argue on the basis of a different set of assumptions that God may not exist and Biblical revelation may not be true.[2][not in citation given] Two schools of presuppositionalism exist, based on the different teachings of Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Haddon Clark. Presuppositionalism contrasts with classical apologetics and evidential apologetics.
Presuppositionalists compare their presupposition against other ultimate standards such as reason, empirical experience, and subjective feeling, claiming presupposition in this context is:

a belief that takes precedence over another and therefore serves as a criterion for another. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition… This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of God in the area of human thought. It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing.[3]
Critics of presuppositional apologetics claim that it is logically invalid because it begs the question of the truth of Christianity and the non-truth of other worldviews.


Contents  [hide]
1 Comparison with other schools of apologetics
2 History
3 Varieties 3.1 Van Tillian presuppositionalism
3.2 Clarkian presuppositionalism
4 See also
5 Notes 5.1 References
5.2 Bibliography
6 External links 6.1 Debates utilizing a presuppositional approach
6.2 Debates and discussions on apologetic method


Comparison with other schools of apologetics[edit]
Presuppositionalists contrast their approach with the other schools of Christian apologetics by describing the others as assuming that the world is intelligible apart from belief in the existence of God and then arguing on purportedly neutral grounds to support trusting the Christian Scriptures and the existence of God. Specifically, presuppositionalists describe Thomistic (also "Traditional" or "Classical") apologetics as concentrating on the first aspect of apologetics with its logical proofs for the existence of God, simply assuming common ground with the non-Christian and utilizing a piece-by-piece methodology. In this scheme, the common foundation of neutral brute facts leads to a generic concept of deity, then to the various characteristics of the Christian God as revealed in Scripture, and so forth. Piece-by-piece, Christian theology is built up from a neutral common ground.
Presuppositionalists assert that many of the classical arguments are logically fallacious, or do not prove enough, when used as arguments to prove the existence or character of God.[a] They criticize both the assumption of neutrality and the "block house" or "piecemeal" method for failing to start at the level of the controlling beliefs of worldviews and implicitly allowing non-Christian assumptions from the start, thereby trying to build a Christian "house" on a non-Christian "foundation".[5][6] Evidentialists demur from this assessment, claiming that presuppositionalism amounts to fideism because it rejects a neutral starting point for reasoning between the Christian and non-Christian.
The conclusion of evidential apologetics is that the Bible is probably more accurate about what it reports than not, thus the whole of Biblical revelation is probably true, and where we don't have absolute certainty we must accept the most probable theory.[7][8] The goal of presuppositional apologetics on the other hand, is to argue that the assumptions and actions of non-Christians require them to believe certain things about God, man and the world which they claim they do not believe. This type of argument is technically called a reductio ad absurdum in that it attempts to reduce the opposition to holding an absurd, i.e. contradictory position; in this case, both believing in facts of Christian revelation (in practice) and denying them (in word). So in essence, evidential apologetics attempts to build from a common starting point in neutral facts, while presuppositional apologetics attempts to claim all facts for the Christian worldview as the only framework in which they are intelligible.[9]
History[edit]
The modern origins of presuppositional apologetics are in the work of Dutch theologian Cornelius Van Til, a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, who began to adopt a presuppositional approach to defending the truth of his faith as early as the late 1920s.[10][page needed] Van Til personally disliked the term "presuppositional", as he felt it misrepresented his approach to apologetics, which he felt was focused primarily on the preeminence of the Bible as the ultimate criterion for truth, rather than denying or ignoring evidence. He did, however, accept the label reluctantly, given that it was a useful way of distinguishing between those who deny a neutral basis for apologetics and those who do not. His student, Greg Bahnsen, aided in some of the later developments of Van Tillian Presuppositionalism, and the Bahnsen Theological Seminary continues to promote presuppositional apologetics in its curriculum. John Frame, another student of Van Til, also continues to advocate a presuppositional approach, although he is generally more critical of Van Til's thought than Bahnsen was.[11][page needed] Bahnsen's protégé, Michael R. Butler, has also been active in advancing the field. Among his contributions is a technical, metalogical study of transcendental arguments in general and the Transcendental argument for the existence of God in particular, which he wrote for Bahnsen's festschrift.[12]
By 1952, presuppositional apologetics had acquired a new advocate in the Presbyterian theologian Gordon Clark.[13][page needed] He embraced the label "presuppositional" since his approach to apologetics, emphasizing the priority of epistemology and an axiom of revelation, was more closely concerned with the logical order of assumptions than was Van Til. The differences between the two views on presuppositionalism, though few in number, caused a significant rift between the two men, and even after both Clark and Van Til had died, John Robbins (a theologian and former student of Clark's) and Bahnsen were often involved in heated exchanges.[14][15][16]
In a 2000 book outlining the major schools of apologetics, the presuppositional approach was given equal time alongside other schools of thought (the "classical" and "evidential" noted above, for example).[17][page needed] In general, Van Til's approach is far more popular and widespread than Clark's.
Varieties[edit]
Van Tillian presuppositionalism[edit]

 

 Cornelius Van Til
Apologists who follow Van Til earned the label "presuppositional" because of their central tenet that the Christian must at all times presuppose the supernatural revelation of the Bible as the ultimate arbiter of truth and error in order to know anything. Christians, they say, can assume nothing less because all human thought presupposes the existence of the God of the Bible.[18] They claim that by accepting the assumptions of non-Christians, which fundamentally deny the Trinitarian God of the Bible, one could not even formulate an intelligible argument. Though Van Tillians do, at one point, "put themselves in the shoes" of the opponent, "for the sake of argument", to demonstrate where that position would lead, they claim that they can only do so because this is actually God's world, and man is actually God's creature, made in God's own image, and as such can never completely shut God out (in living or thinking)—hence there is always a common basis for dialogue, even though it is, in the presuppositionalist's view, a basis which the opponent is not usually willing to acknowledge and which is decidedly biased rather than neutral.
According to Frame, "[Van Til's] major complaints against competing apologetic methods are theological complaints, that is, that they compromise the incomprehensibility of God, total depravity, the clarity of natural revelation, God's comprehensive control over creation, and so on."[19][page needed] Within their presuppositionalist framework, Van Tillians do often utilize foundational concepts for Thomistic and Evidentialist arguments (belief in the uniformity of natural causes, for example), but they are unwilling to grant that such beliefs are justifiable on "natural" (neutral) grounds. Rather, Van Tillians employ these beliefs, which they justify on Biblical grounds, in the service of transcendental arguments, which are a sort of meta-argument about foundational principles, necessary preconditions, in which the non-Christian's worldview is shown to be incoherent in and of itself and intelligible only because it borrows capital from the Christian worldview. For example, where evidentialists would take the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system as a neutral common starting point and construct a cosmological argument for an unmoved mover, Van Tillian presuppositionalists would ask for a justification for the belief in the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, given the worldview of the opponent, attempting to show that such a belief presupposes the Christian worldview and is ultimately incompatible with the opposing worldview.[b] Van Til summarized the main drive of his apologetic by saying: "the only proof for the existence of God is that without God you couldn't prove anything."
Van Tillians also stress the importance of reckoning with "the noetic effects of sin" (that is, the effects of sin on the mind), which, they maintain, corrupt man's ability to understand God, the world, and himself aright. In their view, as a fallen creature, man does know the truth in each of these areas, but he seeks to find a different interpretation—one in which, as C. S. Lewis said, he is "on the bench" and God is "in the dock."[21][page needed] The primary job of the apologist is, therefore, simply to confront the unbeliever with the fact that, while he is verbally denying the truth, he is nonetheless practically behaving in accord with it. Van Til illustrated this alleged inconsistency as a child, elevated on the father's knee, reaching up to slap his face, and Bahnsen used the analogy of a man breathing out air to make the argument that air doesn't exist.[22][23]
Another important aspect of the Van Tillian apologetical program is the distinction between proof and persuasion. According to the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, man has ample proof in all of creation of God's existence and attributes but chooses to suppress it.[24] Van Til likewise claimed that there are valid arguments to prove that the God of the Bible exists but that the unbeliever would not necessarily be persuaded by them because of his suppression of the truth, and therefore the apologist, he said, must present the truth regardless of whether anyone is actually persuaded by it (Frame notes that the apologist is here akin to the psychiatrist who presents the truth about the paranoid's delusions, trusting that his patient knows the truth at some level and can accept it—though Frame, as a Calvinist, would say the special intervention of God in the Holy Spirit is also required for the unbeliever to accept ultimate truths.[25][26]) An implication of this position is that all arguments are "person relative" in the sense that one non-Christian might be persuaded by a particular argument and another might not be, depending on their background and experiences; even if the argument constitutes logically valid proof.
Clarkian presuppositionalism[edit]
Gordon Clark and his followers treat the truth of the Scriptures as the axiom of their system. Like all axioms, this axiom is considered to be self-evident truth, not to be proven, but used for proof. However, the worldview that results from the axiom may be tested for consistency and comprehensiveness.[27] Testing for internal contradiction exemplifies Clark's strict reliance on the laws of logic (he famously translates the first verse of the Gospel of John as "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God, and the Logic was God.")[28] Thus, in order to invalidate non-Christian worldviews, one must simply show how a different presupposition results in necessary logical contradictions, while showing that presupposing the Bible leads to no logical contradiction. By contrast, some Van Tillians have suggested that God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture reveals apparent paradoxes.[29]
However, Clark allowed that presupposing axioms (or "first principles") themselves do not make a philosophical system true, including his own; the fact that all worldviews he examined other than Christianity had internal contradictions only made Christianity highly more probable as truth, but not necessarily so.[citation needed] Nonetheless, he believed that this method was effective in many practical cases (when arguing against, for instance, secular humanism or dialectical materialism) and that, in the end, each of us must simply choose (that is, make an informed selection) from among seemingly consistent worldviews the one that most adequately answers life's questions and seems the most internally coherent. Some Van Tillian critics suggest that the concept of coherence itself must be defined in terms of Christian presuppositions but is instead being used by Clark as a "neutral" principle for discerning the truth of any proposition.[citation needed]
Using this approach, Clark labored to expose the contradictions of many worldviews that were in vogue in his day and to defend the Christian worldview by proving its consistency over and against those who attacked it. His unflagging use of logic sometimes led him to what most Reformed theologians consider rather unorthodox ideas on such topics as the problem of evil—topics which are most often treated by theologians as paradoxes or apparent contradictions not resolvable by human logic. But Clark famously rejected the idea that Scripture teaches paradoxes and notion of "apparent contradiction", asking "apparent to whom?". He described an alleged biblical paradox as nothing more than "a charley-horse between the ears that can be eliminated by rational massage."[30]
With regard to other schools of apologetics, Clark suggested that the cosmological argument was not just unpersuasive but also logically invalid (because it begged the question), and he similarly dismissed the other Thomistic arguments.[31] As a staunch critic of all varieties of empiricism, he did not tend to make much use of evidential arguments, which yield likelihoods and probabilities rather than logical certainties (that is, either coherence or incoherence).
See also[edit]
Christian apologetics
Christian existential apologetics
Christian philosophy
Circular reasoning
Evidential apologetics
Fideism
Herman Dooyeweerd
Neo-Calvinism
Rationalism
Total depravity
Transcendental argument for the existence of God
Notes[edit]
a.Jump up ^ However, Thomas Aquinas never speaks of "proofs" for the existence of God per se, and on one reading, his "ways" may be taken as demonstrations of the inner coherence of belief in God, rather than proofs[4][page needed]. Taken in this sense, Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame, et al., have embraced the traditional arguments.
b.Jump up ^ Bahnsen argued that inductive reasoning cannot be justified on an atheistic worldview[20].
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Frame 2006.
2.Jump up ^ Sproul, Gerstner & Lindsley 1984, p. 183.
3.Jump up ^ Frame 1987, p. 45.
4.Jump up ^ McGrath, Alister, The Dawkins Delusion?
5.Jump up ^ van Til 1967, pp. 122–23, 126–29, 131–32.
6.Jump up ^ Bahnsen 1998, pp. 266–68.
7.Jump up ^ Carnell 1948, pp. 113–18.
8.Jump up ^ Frame 1987, pp. 135–36.
9.Jump up ^ van Til 1969, pp. 18–19.
10.Jump up ^ Oliphint 1991.
11.Jump up ^ Fernandes 1997.
12.Jump up ^ Butler 2002, pp. 64–124.
13.Jump up ^ Hoover 1984.
14.Jump up ^ Bahnsen, "Response to Robbins", Journey (CMF now).
15.Jump up ^ Flood, "Response to Bahnsen", Journey (CMF now).
16.Jump up ^ Bahnsen, "Response to Flood", Journey (CMF now).
17.Jump up ^ Frame 2000.
18.Jump up ^ van Til 1967, pp. 351–56.
19.Jump up ^ Frame 1976.
20.Jump up ^ Bahnsen & Stein 1985, p. 27-28.
21.Jump up ^ Lewis 1970.
22.Jump up ^ Schwertley.
23.Jump up ^ Harrison.
24.Jump up ^ Bahnsen 2002, pp. 37–40.
25.Jump up ^ Frame 1995, pp. 413–15.
26.Jump up ^ Frame 1994, pp. 62–3.
27.Jump up ^ The Trinity foundation.
28.Jump up ^ Clark 1998, pp. 115–22.
29.Jump up ^ The Trinity foundation.
30.Jump up ^ Crampton 1990.
31.Jump up ^ Clark 1995, pp. 35–39.
Bibliography[edit]
Bahnsen, Greg L (1998). Van Til's Apologetic: Readings & Analysis. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-098-7.
——— (2002). Booth, Robert R, ed. Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith. Nacogdoches: Covenant. ISBN 0-915815-28-1.
Bahnsen, Christian Greg; Stein, Gordon (1985), The Great Debate: Does God Exist? (PDF) (formal debate), University of California, Irvine: Bellevue Christian.
Butler, Michael (2002). "The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God". In Schlissel, Steven M. The Standard Bearer: A Festschrift for Greg L. Bahnsen. Nacogdoches: Covenant. pp. 64–124.
Carnell, Edward John (1948). An Introduction to Christian Apologetics: A Philosophic Defense of the Trinitarian-Theistic Faith. Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans.
Clark, Gordon Haddon (1995). Religion, Reason, and Revelation (3rd ed.). Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation. ISBN 0-940931-86-9.
——— (1998). A Christian View of Men and Things (3rd ed.). Unicoi: Trinity Foundation. ISBN 1-891777-01-7.
——— (1998b). Logic (3rd ed.). Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation. pp. 115–22. ISBN 0-940931-81-8.
Crampton, W Gary (November–December 1990). "Does the Bible Contain Paradox?". Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation.
Fernandes, Phil (1997), "Cornelius Van Til", Pressupositional Apologetics (doctoral dissertation), Biblical defense.
Frame, John M (1976). Van Til: The Theologian. Reformed. ISBN 0-916034-02-X.
——— (1987). The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Theology of Lordship). Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-262-9.
——— (1994). Apologetics to the Glory of God. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 978-0-87552-243-2.
——— (1995). Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought. Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-220-3.
——— (2000). "Presuppositional Apologetics". In Cowan, Steven B. Five Views on Apologetics. ISBN 0-310-22476-4.
——— (2006). "Presuppositional Apologetics". In Campbell-Jack, WC; McGrath, Gavin J; Evans, C Stephen. New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-2451-9. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
Geehan, ER, ed. (1980). Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til. Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-489-3.
Harrison, James M. "The Presuppositional Apologetic". Gospel outreach. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
Hoover, David P (1984). Gordon Clark's Extraordinary View of Men and Things. ISBN 0-944788-22-X.
Lewis, Clive Staples (1970). God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-0868-9.
Oliphint, K Scott (1991). "Cornelius Van Til and the Reformation of Christian Apologetics". In van der Walt, BJ. Die Idee Van Reformasie: Gister En Vandag.
Schwertley, Brian. "Secular Humanism". Reformed. Archived from the original on 2007-05-04. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
Sproul, RC; Gerstner, John; Lindsley, Arthur (1984). Classical Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. ISBN 978-0-310-44951-5. "A friendly refutation of Cornelius Van Til's presuppositional apologetics."
van Til, Cornelius (1967). The Defense of the Faith. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed.
——— (1969). A Christian Theory of Knowledge. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed.
External links[edit]
Debates utilizing a presuppositional approach[edit]
Ten Bruggencate, Sye; Baird, Paul (March 2011), Presuppositional Apologetics Round 2 (AUDIO FEED) (debate), UK: Premier Christian Radio.
Cheung, Vincent; Sansone, Derek, Biblical Rationalism versus Psycho Assertionism (informal email debate), RMI Web.
Drange, Theodore; Wilson, Douglas, The Drange-Wilson Debate (written debate).
Jones, Doug; Parsons, Keith; Martin, Michael, "Is Non-Christian Thought Futile?", Antithesis (written debate) 2 (4).
Martin, Michael; Frame, John, The Martin-Frame Debate (written debate), Infidels, about the transcendental argument for the existence of God.
Debates and discussions on apologetic method[edit]
Bahnsen, Greg, "A Critique of the Evidentialist Apologetical Method of John Warwick Montgomery", CMF now.
Clark, Gordon Haddon; Hoover, David, Presuppositional or Evidential Apologetics? (MP3) (debate) (25 MB download only).
Erlandson, Doug, "The Resurrection of Thomism", Classical Apologetics 2 (3), Reformed, critiquing Thomistic apologetics.
Frame, John, "Van Til and the Ligonier Apologetic", Westminster Theological Journal (review) on Sproul, Gerstner & Lindsley 1984.
Presuppositionalism vs. Evidentialism (question-and-answer), Creation Ministries International, takes a semi-Clarkian approach to apologetics.
Agnostic asks whether biblical Christians commit circular reasoning: role of axioms, internal consistency and real world application (question-and-answer), Creation Ministries International, semi-Clarkian.
Presuppositional Spaghetti, the Lottery Paradox, and the Search for God, Noble minded, a critique of presuppositionalism.


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Presuppositional apologetics

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Presuppositionalism is a school of Christian apologetics that believes the Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation and attempts to expose flaws in other worldviews. It claims that apart from presuppositions, one could not make sense of any human experience, and there can be no set of neutral assumptions from which to reason with a non-Christian.[1] Presuppositionalists claim that a Christian cannot consistently declare his belief in the necessary existence of the God of the Bible and simultaneously argue on the basis of a different set of assumptions that God may not exist and Biblical revelation may not be true.[2][not in citation given] Two schools of presuppositionalism exist, based on the different teachings of Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Haddon Clark. Presuppositionalism contrasts with classical apologetics and evidential apologetics.
Presuppositionalists compare their presupposition against other ultimate standards such as reason, empirical experience, and subjective feeling, claiming presupposition in this context is:

a belief that takes precedence over another and therefore serves as a criterion for another. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition… This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of God in the area of human thought. It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing.[3]
Critics of presuppositional apologetics claim that it is logically invalid because it begs the question of the truth of Christianity and the non-truth of other worldviews.


Contents  [hide]
1 Comparison with other schools of apologetics
2 History
3 Varieties 3.1 Van Tillian presuppositionalism
3.2 Clarkian presuppositionalism
4 See also
5 Notes 5.1 References
5.2 Bibliography
6 External links 6.1 Debates utilizing a presuppositional approach
6.2 Debates and discussions on apologetic method


Comparison with other schools of apologetics[edit]
Presuppositionalists contrast their approach with the other schools of Christian apologetics by describing the others as assuming that the world is intelligible apart from belief in the existence of God and then arguing on purportedly neutral grounds to support trusting the Christian Scriptures and the existence of God. Specifically, presuppositionalists describe Thomistic (also "Traditional" or "Classical") apologetics as concentrating on the first aspect of apologetics with its logical proofs for the existence of God, simply assuming common ground with the non-Christian and utilizing a piece-by-piece methodology. In this scheme, the common foundation of neutral brute facts leads to a generic concept of deity, then to the various characteristics of the Christian God as revealed in Scripture, and so forth. Piece-by-piece, Christian theology is built up from a neutral common ground.
Presuppositionalists assert that many of the classical arguments are logically fallacious, or do not prove enough, when used as arguments to prove the existence or character of God.[a] They criticize both the assumption of neutrality and the "block house" or "piecemeal" method for failing to start at the level of the controlling beliefs of worldviews and implicitly allowing non-Christian assumptions from the start, thereby trying to build a Christian "house" on a non-Christian "foundation".[5][6] Evidentialists demur from this assessment, claiming that presuppositionalism amounts to fideism because it rejects a neutral starting point for reasoning between the Christian and non-Christian.
The conclusion of evidential apologetics is that the Bible is probably more accurate about what it reports than not, thus the whole of Biblical revelation is probably true, and where we don't have absolute certainty we must accept the most probable theory.[7][8] The goal of presuppositional apologetics on the other hand, is to argue that the assumptions and actions of non-Christians require them to believe certain things about God, man and the world which they claim they do not believe. This type of argument is technically called a reductio ad absurdum in that it attempts to reduce the opposition to holding an absurd, i.e. contradictory position; in this case, both believing in facts of Christian revelation (in practice) and denying them (in word). So in essence, evidential apologetics attempts to build from a common starting point in neutral facts, while presuppositional apologetics attempts to claim all facts for the Christian worldview as the only framework in which they are intelligible.[9]
History[edit]
The modern origins of presuppositional apologetics are in the work of Dutch theologian Cornelius Van Til, a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, who began to adopt a presuppositional approach to defending the truth of his faith as early as the late 1920s.[10][page needed] Van Til personally disliked the term "presuppositional", as he felt it misrepresented his approach to apologetics, which he felt was focused primarily on the preeminence of the Bible as the ultimate criterion for truth, rather than denying or ignoring evidence. He did, however, accept the label reluctantly, given that it was a useful way of distinguishing between those who deny a neutral basis for apologetics and those who do not. His student, Greg Bahnsen, aided in some of the later developments of Van Tillian Presuppositionalism, and the Bahnsen Theological Seminary continues to promote presuppositional apologetics in its curriculum. John Frame, another student of Van Til, also continues to advocate a presuppositional approach, although he is generally more critical of Van Til's thought than Bahnsen was.[11][page needed] Bahnsen's protégé, Michael R. Butler, has also been active in advancing the field. Among his contributions is a technical, metalogical study of transcendental arguments in general and the Transcendental argument for the existence of God in particular, which he wrote for Bahnsen's festschrift.[12]
By 1952, presuppositional apologetics had acquired a new advocate in the Presbyterian theologian Gordon Clark.[13][page needed] He embraced the label "presuppositional" since his approach to apologetics, emphasizing the priority of epistemology and an axiom of revelation, was more closely concerned with the logical order of assumptions than was Van Til. The differences between the two views on presuppositionalism, though few in number, caused a significant rift between the two men, and even after both Clark and Van Til had died, John Robbins (a theologian and former student of Clark's) and Bahnsen were often involved in heated exchanges.[14][15][16]
In a 2000 book outlining the major schools of apologetics, the presuppositional approach was given equal time alongside other schools of thought (the "classical" and "evidential" noted above, for example).[17][page needed] In general, Van Til's approach is far more popular and widespread than Clark's.
Varieties[edit]
Van Tillian presuppositionalism[edit]

 

 Cornelius Van Til
Apologists who follow Van Til earned the label "presuppositional" because of their central tenet that the Christian must at all times presuppose the supernatural revelation of the Bible as the ultimate arbiter of truth and error in order to know anything. Christians, they say, can assume nothing less because all human thought presupposes the existence of the God of the Bible.[18] They claim that by accepting the assumptions of non-Christians, which fundamentally deny the Trinitarian God of the Bible, one could not even formulate an intelligible argument. Though Van Tillians do, at one point, "put themselves in the shoes" of the opponent, "for the sake of argument", to demonstrate where that position would lead, they claim that they can only do so because this is actually God's world, and man is actually God's creature, made in God's own image, and as such can never completely shut God out (in living or thinking)—hence there is always a common basis for dialogue, even though it is, in the presuppositionalist's view, a basis which the opponent is not usually willing to acknowledge and which is decidedly biased rather than neutral.
According to Frame, "[Van Til's] major complaints against competing apologetic methods are theological complaints, that is, that they compromise the incomprehensibility of God, total depravity, the clarity of natural revelation, God's comprehensive control over creation, and so on."[19][page needed] Within their presuppositionalist framework, Van Tillians do often utilize foundational concepts for Thomistic and Evidentialist arguments (belief in the uniformity of natural causes, for example), but they are unwilling to grant that such beliefs are justifiable on "natural" (neutral) grounds. Rather, Van Tillians employ these beliefs, which they justify on Biblical grounds, in the service of transcendental arguments, which are a sort of meta-argument about foundational principles, necessary preconditions, in which the non-Christian's worldview is shown to be incoherent in and of itself and intelligible only because it borrows capital from the Christian worldview. For example, where evidentialists would take the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system as a neutral common starting point and construct a cosmological argument for an unmoved mover, Van Tillian presuppositionalists would ask for a justification for the belief in the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, given the worldview of the opponent, attempting to show that such a belief presupposes the Christian worldview and is ultimately incompatible with the opposing worldview.[b] Van Til summarized the main drive of his apologetic by saying: "the only proof for the existence of God is that without God you couldn't prove anything."
Van Tillians also stress the importance of reckoning with "the noetic effects of sin" (that is, the effects of sin on the mind), which, they maintain, corrupt man's ability to understand God, the world, and himself aright. In their view, as a fallen creature, man does know the truth in each of these areas, but he seeks to find a different interpretation—one in which, as C. S. Lewis said, he is "on the bench" and God is "in the dock."[21][page needed] The primary job of the apologist is, therefore, simply to confront the unbeliever with the fact that, while he is verbally denying the truth, he is nonetheless practically behaving in accord with it. Van Til illustrated this alleged inconsistency as a child, elevated on the father's knee, reaching up to slap his face, and Bahnsen used the analogy of a man breathing out air to make the argument that air doesn't exist.[22][23]
Another important aspect of the Van Tillian apologetical program is the distinction between proof and persuasion. According to the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, man has ample proof in all of creation of God's existence and attributes but chooses to suppress it.[24] Van Til likewise claimed that there are valid arguments to prove that the God of the Bible exists but that the unbeliever would not necessarily be persuaded by them because of his suppression of the truth, and therefore the apologist, he said, must present the truth regardless of whether anyone is actually persuaded by it (Frame notes that the apologist is here akin to the psychiatrist who presents the truth about the paranoid's delusions, trusting that his patient knows the truth at some level and can accept it—though Frame, as a Calvinist, would say the special intervention of God in the Holy Spirit is also required for the unbeliever to accept ultimate truths.[25][26]) An implication of this position is that all arguments are "person relative" in the sense that one non-Christian might be persuaded by a particular argument and another might not be, depending on their background and experiences; even if the argument constitutes logically valid proof.
Clarkian presuppositionalism[edit]
Gordon Clark and his followers treat the truth of the Scriptures as the axiom of their system. Like all axioms, this axiom is considered to be self-evident truth, not to be proven, but used for proof. However, the worldview that results from the axiom may be tested for consistency and comprehensiveness.[27] Testing for internal contradiction exemplifies Clark's strict reliance on the laws of logic (he famously translates the first verse of the Gospel of John as "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God, and the Logic was God.")[28] Thus, in order to invalidate non-Christian worldviews, one must simply show how a different presupposition results in necessary logical contradictions, while showing that presupposing the Bible leads to no logical contradiction. By contrast, some Van Tillians have suggested that God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture reveals apparent paradoxes.[29]
However, Clark allowed that presupposing axioms (or "first principles") themselves do not make a philosophical system true, including his own; the fact that all worldviews he examined other than Christianity had internal contradictions only made Christianity highly more probable as truth, but not necessarily so.[citation needed] Nonetheless, he believed that this method was effective in many practical cases (when arguing against, for instance, secular humanism or dialectical materialism) and that, in the end, each of us must simply choose (that is, make an informed selection) from among seemingly consistent worldviews the one that most adequately answers life's questions and seems the most internally coherent. Some Van Tillian critics suggest that the concept of coherence itself must be defined in terms of Christian presuppositions but is instead being used by Clark as a "neutral" principle for discerning the truth of any proposition.[citation needed]
Using this approach, Clark labored to expose the contradictions of many worldviews that were in vogue in his day and to defend the Christian worldview by proving its consistency over and against those who attacked it. His unflagging use of logic sometimes led him to what most Reformed theologians consider rather unorthodox ideas on such topics as the problem of evil—topics which are most often treated by theologians as paradoxes or apparent contradictions not resolvable by human logic. But Clark famously rejected the idea that Scripture teaches paradoxes and notion of "apparent contradiction", asking "apparent to whom?". He described an alleged biblical paradox as nothing more than "a charley-horse between the ears that can be eliminated by rational massage."[30]
With regard to other schools of apologetics, Clark suggested that the cosmological argument was not just unpersuasive but also logically invalid (because it begged the question), and he similarly dismissed the other Thomistic arguments.[31] As a staunch critic of all varieties of empiricism, he did not tend to make much use of evidential arguments, which yield likelihoods and probabilities rather than logical certainties (that is, either coherence or incoherence).
See also[edit]
Christian apologetics
Christian existential apologetics
Christian philosophy
Circular reasoning
Evidential apologetics
Fideism
Herman Dooyeweerd
Neo-Calvinism
Rationalism
Total depravity
Transcendental argument for the existence of God
Notes[edit]
a.Jump up ^ However, Thomas Aquinas never speaks of "proofs" for the existence of God per se, and on one reading, his "ways" may be taken as demonstrations of the inner coherence of belief in God, rather than proofs[4][page needed]. Taken in this sense, Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame, et al., have embraced the traditional arguments.
b.Jump up ^ Bahnsen argued that inductive reasoning cannot be justified on an atheistic worldview[20].
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Frame 2006.
2.Jump up ^ Sproul, Gerstner & Lindsley 1984, p. 183.
3.Jump up ^ Frame 1987, p. 45.
4.Jump up ^ McGrath, Alister, The Dawkins Delusion?
5.Jump up ^ van Til 1967, pp. 122–23, 126–29, 131–32.
6.Jump up ^ Bahnsen 1998, pp. 266–68.
7.Jump up ^ Carnell 1948, pp. 113–18.
8.Jump up ^ Frame 1987, pp. 135–36.
9.Jump up ^ van Til 1969, pp. 18–19.
10.Jump up ^ Oliphint 1991.
11.Jump up ^ Fernandes 1997.
12.Jump up ^ Butler 2002, pp. 64–124.
13.Jump up ^ Hoover 1984.
14.Jump up ^ Bahnsen, "Response to Robbins", Journey (CMF now).
15.Jump up ^ Flood, "Response to Bahnsen", Journey (CMF now).
16.Jump up ^ Bahnsen, "Response to Flood", Journey (CMF now).
17.Jump up ^ Frame 2000.
18.Jump up ^ van Til 1967, pp. 351–56.
19.Jump up ^ Frame 1976.
20.Jump up ^ Bahnsen & Stein 1985, p. 27-28.
21.Jump up ^ Lewis 1970.
22.Jump up ^ Schwertley.
23.Jump up ^ Harrison.
24.Jump up ^ Bahnsen 2002, pp. 37–40.
25.Jump up ^ Frame 1995, pp. 413–15.
26.Jump up ^ Frame 1994, pp. 62–3.
27.Jump up ^ The Trinity foundation.
28.Jump up ^ Clark 1998, pp. 115–22.
29.Jump up ^ The Trinity foundation.
30.Jump up ^ Crampton 1990.
31.Jump up ^ Clark 1995, pp. 35–39.
Bibliography[edit]
Bahnsen, Greg L (1998). Van Til's Apologetic: Readings & Analysis. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-098-7.
——— (2002). Booth, Robert R, ed. Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith. Nacogdoches: Covenant. ISBN 0-915815-28-1.
Bahnsen, Christian Greg; Stein, Gordon (1985), The Great Debate: Does God Exist? (PDF) (formal debate), University of California, Irvine: Bellevue Christian.
Butler, Michael (2002). "The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God". In Schlissel, Steven M. The Standard Bearer: A Festschrift for Greg L. Bahnsen. Nacogdoches: Covenant. pp. 64–124.
Carnell, Edward John (1948). An Introduction to Christian Apologetics: A Philosophic Defense of the Trinitarian-Theistic Faith. Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans.
Clark, Gordon Haddon (1995). Religion, Reason, and Revelation (3rd ed.). Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation. ISBN 0-940931-86-9.
——— (1998). A Christian View of Men and Things (3rd ed.). Unicoi: Trinity Foundation. ISBN 1-891777-01-7.
——— (1998b). Logic (3rd ed.). Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation. pp. 115–22. ISBN 0-940931-81-8.
Crampton, W Gary (November–December 1990). "Does the Bible Contain Paradox?". Unicoi: The Trinity Foundation.
Fernandes, Phil (1997), "Cornelius Van Til", Pressupositional Apologetics (doctoral dissertation), Biblical defense.
Frame, John M (1976). Van Til: The Theologian. Reformed. ISBN 0-916034-02-X.
——— (1987). The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Theology of Lordship). Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-262-9.
——— (1994). Apologetics to the Glory of God. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 978-0-87552-243-2.
——— (1995). Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought. Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-220-3.
——— (2000). "Presuppositional Apologetics". In Cowan, Steven B. Five Views on Apologetics. ISBN 0-310-22476-4.
——— (2006). "Presuppositional Apologetics". In Campbell-Jack, WC; McGrath, Gavin J; Evans, C Stephen. New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-2451-9. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
Geehan, ER, ed. (1980). Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til. Presbyterian & Reformed. ISBN 0-87552-489-3.
Harrison, James M. "The Presuppositional Apologetic". Gospel outreach. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
Hoover, David P (1984). Gordon Clark's Extraordinary View of Men and Things. ISBN 0-944788-22-X.
Lewis, Clive Staples (1970). God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-0868-9.
Oliphint, K Scott (1991). "Cornelius Van Til and the Reformation of Christian Apologetics". In van der Walt, BJ. Die Idee Van Reformasie: Gister En Vandag.
Schwertley, Brian. "Secular Humanism". Reformed. Archived from the original on 2007-05-04. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
Sproul, RC; Gerstner, John; Lindsley, Arthur (1984). Classical Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. ISBN 978-0-310-44951-5. "A friendly refutation of Cornelius Van Til's presuppositional apologetics."
van Til, Cornelius (1967). The Defense of the Faith. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed.
——— (1969). A Christian Theory of Knowledge. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed.
External links[edit]
Debates utilizing a presuppositional approach[edit]
Ten Bruggencate, Sye; Baird, Paul (March 2011), Presuppositional Apologetics Round 2 (AUDIO FEED) (debate), UK: Premier Christian Radio.
Cheung, Vincent; Sansone, Derek, Biblical Rationalism versus Psycho Assertionism (informal email debate), RMI Web.
Drange, Theodore; Wilson, Douglas, The Drange-Wilson Debate (written debate).
Jones, Doug; Parsons, Keith; Martin, Michael, "Is Non-Christian Thought Futile?", Antithesis (written debate) 2 (4).
Martin, Michael; Frame, John, The Martin-Frame Debate (written debate), Infidels, about the transcendental argument for the existence of God.
Debates and discussions on apologetic method[edit]
Bahnsen, Greg, "A Critique of the Evidentialist Apologetical Method of John Warwick Montgomery", CMF now.
Clark, Gordon Haddon; Hoover, David, Presuppositional or Evidential Apologetics? (MP3) (debate) (25 MB download only).
Erlandson, Doug, "The Resurrection of Thomism", Classical Apologetics 2 (3), Reformed, critiquing Thomistic apologetics.
Frame, John, "Van Til and the Ligonier Apologetic", Westminster Theological Journal (review) on Sproul, Gerstner & Lindsley 1984.
Presuppositionalism vs. Evidentialism (question-and-answer), Creation Ministries International, takes a semi-Clarkian approach to apologetics.
Agnostic asks whether biblical Christians commit circular reasoning: role of axioms, internal consistency and real world application (question-and-answer), Creation Ministries International, semi-Clarkian.
Presuppositional Spaghetti, the Lottery Paradox, and the Search for God, Noble minded, a critique of presuppositionalism.


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Christian existential apologetics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Christian existential apologetics differs from traditional approaches to Christian apologetics by basing arguments for Christian theism on the satisfaction of existential needs rather than on strictly logical or evidential arguments. Christian existential apologetics may also be distinguished from Christian existentialism and from experiential apologetics. The former is a philosophic outlook concerned with the human condition in general; the latter consists of evidential argumentation based on religious experience.


Contents  [hide]
1 Existential apologetics
2 See also
3 References
4 Further reading
5 External links

Existential apologetics[edit]
Christian existential apologetics is “the demonstration that Christian faith is justified because it satisfies certain emotional and spiritual needs.”[1] It typically consists of “existential arguments for believing in God” that are expressed as follows:
1.Humans have certain “existential” needs. N. T. Wright lists four such needs: “the longing for justice, the quest for spirituality, the hunger for relationships, and the delight in beauty.” [2] Clifford Williams lists thirteen: “We need cosmic security. We need to know that we will live beyond the grave in a state that is free from the defects of this life, a state that is full of goodness and justice. We need a more expansive life, one in which we love and are loved. We need meaning, and we need to know that we are forgiven for going astray. We also need to experience awe, to delight in goodness and to be present with those we love.”[3]
2.Faith in God satisfies these needs.
3.Therefore, faith in God is justified.
Williams states that this argument is not the same as an evidential argument: "A person who is convinced of an existential argument says, 'I believe because I am satisfied when I do.' A person who is convinced of an evidential argument says, 'I believe because there is a good reason to do so.'"[4] He also states that the argument is different from C. S. Lewis’s argument from desire, which argues that there is an explanation of the source of the existential needs: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”[5]
See also[edit]
Christian apologetics
Christian existentialism
Evidentialism
Existence of God
Fideism
Pascal's wager
Pragmatism
Presuppositional apologetics
Reformed epistemology
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Clifford Williams, Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011) p. 13.
2.Jump up ^ N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), p. x.
3.Jump up ^ Williams, Existential Reasons for Belief in God, p. 32.
4.Jump up ^ Williams, Existential Reasons for Belief in God, p. 45.
5.Jump up ^ C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) pp. 136-137.
Further reading[edit]
Becker, Ernest, The Denial of Death (New York: The Free Press, 1997)
Freud, Sigmund, The Future of an Illusion, in Peter Gay, ed., The Freud Reader (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1989), 686-722
James, William, "The Will to Believe," in John J. McDermott, ed., The Writings of William James (New York: The Modern Library, 1968), 717-735
James, William, "The Sentiment of Rationality," in John J. McDermott, ed., The Writings of William James (New York: The Modern Library, 1968), 317-345
Jordan, Jeff, "The Ethics of Belief," in Jeff Jordan, Pascal's Wager: Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 37-72
Morris, Thomas, Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992)
Pascal, Blaise, Pensées, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin Books, 1995)
Wainwright, William J., Reason and the Heart: A Prolegomenon to a Critique of Passional Reason (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995)
Williams, Clifford, Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011
Wynn, Mark R., Emotional Experience and Religious Understanding: Integrating Perception, Conception and Feeling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)
External links[edit]
"The Epistemology of Religion" by Peter Forrest, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"Religious Epistemology" by Kelly James Clark, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"A Primer on Religious Existentialism" by Michial Farmer.
"The Heart's Deepest Longings" by Rich Vincent, a review of Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus.
  


Categories: Christian apologetics
Religious existentialism


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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_existential_apologetics










 



Christian existential apologetics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Christian existential apologetics differs from traditional approaches to Christian apologetics by basing arguments for Christian theism on the satisfaction of existential needs rather than on strictly logical or evidential arguments. Christian existential apologetics may also be distinguished from Christian existentialism and from experiential apologetics. The former is a philosophic outlook concerned with the human condition in general; the latter consists of evidential argumentation based on religious experience.


Contents  [hide]
1 Existential apologetics
2 See also
3 References
4 Further reading
5 External links

Existential apologetics[edit]
Christian existential apologetics is “the demonstration that Christian faith is justified because it satisfies certain emotional and spiritual needs.”[1] It typically consists of “existential arguments for believing in God” that are expressed as follows:
1.Humans have certain “existential” needs. N. T. Wright lists four such needs: “the longing for justice, the quest for spirituality, the hunger for relationships, and the delight in beauty.” [2] Clifford Williams lists thirteen: “We need cosmic security. We need to know that we will live beyond the grave in a state that is free from the defects of this life, a state that is full of goodness and justice. We need a more expansive life, one in which we love and are loved. We need meaning, and we need to know that we are forgiven for going astray. We also need to experience awe, to delight in goodness and to be present with those we love.”[3]
2.Faith in God satisfies these needs.
3.Therefore, faith in God is justified.
Williams states that this argument is not the same as an evidential argument: "A person who is convinced of an existential argument says, 'I believe because I am satisfied when I do.' A person who is convinced of an evidential argument says, 'I believe because there is a good reason to do so.'"[4] He also states that the argument is different from C. S. Lewis’s argument from desire, which argues that there is an explanation of the source of the existential needs: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”[5]
See also[edit]
Christian apologetics
Christian existentialism
Evidentialism
Existence of God
Fideism
Pascal's wager
Pragmatism
Presuppositional apologetics
Reformed epistemology
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Clifford Williams, Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011) p. 13.
2.Jump up ^ N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), p. x.
3.Jump up ^ Williams, Existential Reasons for Belief in God, p. 32.
4.Jump up ^ Williams, Existential Reasons for Belief in God, p. 45.
5.Jump up ^ C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) pp. 136-137.
Further reading[edit]
Becker, Ernest, The Denial of Death (New York: The Free Press, 1997)
Freud, Sigmund, The Future of an Illusion, in Peter Gay, ed., The Freud Reader (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1989), 686-722
James, William, "The Will to Believe," in John J. McDermott, ed., The Writings of William James (New York: The Modern Library, 1968), 717-735
James, William, "The Sentiment of Rationality," in John J. McDermott, ed., The Writings of William James (New York: The Modern Library, 1968), 317-345
Jordan, Jeff, "The Ethics of Belief," in Jeff Jordan, Pascal's Wager: Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 37-72
Morris, Thomas, Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992)
Pascal, Blaise, Pensées, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin Books, 1995)
Wainwright, William J., Reason and the Heart: A Prolegomenon to a Critique of Passional Reason (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995)
Williams, Clifford, Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011
Wynn, Mark R., Emotional Experience and Religious Understanding: Integrating Perception, Conception and Feeling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)
External links[edit]
"The Epistemology of Religion" by Peter Forrest, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"Religious Epistemology" by Kelly James Clark, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"A Primer on Religious Existentialism" by Michial Farmer.
"The Heart's Deepest Longings" by Rich Vincent, a review of Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus.
  


Categories: Christian apologetics
Religious existentialism


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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_existential_apologetics