The Impossibility of the Contrary

Is it possible to prove that the God of Christian theism actually exists? If so, what sort of proof is required to prove this sort of God exists? The field of Christian Apologetics offers a stunning variety of methods for proving that the God of Christian theism exists. However, not all methods hit their target and most methods in fact, fail to do the one thing they should seek to do above all else: honor the God they seek to prove exists. It is precisely this that the apologetics of Cornelius Van Til sought to do above all else.

Cornelius Van Til sought to prove that the God of Christian theism existed by demonstrating that all of human experience would be unintelligible, especially human predication, if in fact the God of Christian theism did not exist. The method employed by Van Til rejected the approach of other apologetic systems whose conclusions at best only show that God exists on some scale of probability.

In other words, proving that it is highly probable that God exists simply does not comport with the sort of certitude and demands found in the biblical text. The biblical text claims to be God speaking, and as such takes God’s existence for granted, and vigorously demands that all of humanity acknowledge God as sovereign Lord over all that is. The Scriptures never appeal to finite man as the ultimate standard by which it’s content should be judged nor does it ever encourage man to “check it out” for himself and see what he thinks. Nothing less will do if the Christian apologist truly seeks to employ an apologetic that is fully honoring to God by being consistent with the theology revealed in the biblical text.

The transcendental argument for the existence of God proves that God exists by demonstrating the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary is impossible because it involves self-contradiction. The non-Christian worldview is intellectually powerless to bring together the irrationality of brute facts and the rationality of a universal organizing principle to make those facts meaningful. Hence, knowledge and all rationality is destroyed if one accepts the basic commitments of the non-Christian worldview.

The method takes a two-step approach. First the Christian places himself in the unbeliever’s shoes in order to see how well the unbeliever’s conceptual scheme stands up under an internal critique. Van Til asks the unbeliever to show how human experience, any human experience, could be intelligible if the basic commitments of the unbeliever are actually true. In other words, if the universe is a product of pure chance, which is what it must be if God does not exist, then how is it possible for the unbeliever to speak about such things as universals when such a state could only produce individual particulars unrelated to anything else in the universe?

Van Til proved the truthfulness of Christian theism by use of the transcendental argument and he showed us that Christian theism is true precisely because of the impossibility of the contrary. Because the non-Christian worldview is self-refuting in multifarious ways, and since it is contrary to the Christian worldview, it is impossible for it to be true. If it is true that the non-Christian worldview in all its various stripes and versions is impossible, then it follows that the Christian worldview must then be true. The argument is a disjunctive syllogism. Either Christianity or ~ Christianity. ~ ~ Christianity, therefore, Christianity. The opponent may object that there are more than just two options. But framing it the way that Van Til does, this is not the case. At bottom there are only two possible worldviews: either God is sovereign or man is autonomous. Either Christianity is true or it is false. The transcendental argument shows that it is impossible for Christian theism to be false by demonstrating that the very experience necessary to deny it actually must presuppose its truthfulness.

As a reminder, these posts are not aimed at those who are well acquainted with the presuppositional method. Rather, it is aimed at those who are just getting their feet wet in the field of Christian apologetics.

TESTIMONIUM SPIRITUS SANCTI INTERNUM

“The basic structure of Christian theology is simple. Its every teaching should be taken from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as being the words of prophets and apostles spoken on the authority of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, the Savior of sinners.”[1] Since the discipline of Christian apologetics rightly comes under the rubric of Christian theology, it is only logical to see this disciple as also relying exclusively on Scripture as its sole authority. How could it be otherwise? Contrary to numerous Christian philosophers, Christian apologetics does not belong to the field of philosophy. It belongs to theology and with theology it must remain. The constituents of contemporary apologists, if they demonstrate anything at all, they show us what happens to a thoroughly biblical practice when the philosophers are finished with it. It is the conviction of this writer that we must begin with Scripture, employ Scripture continually, and end with Scripture if our apologetic method has any hope at all of approaching the cadence and model of the apologetics of the ancient church.

The most common Hebrew word translated witness is עֵד. “This word, appearing some sixty-seven times in the ot, is also derived from the root ʿûd meaning “return” or “repeat, do again.” The semantic development apparently is that a witness is one, who by reiteration, emphatically affirms his testimony. The word is at home in the language of the court.”^[2] Another Hebrew word that catches our attention is עֵדָה, “used only of things posited to establish permanence and unequivocal facts such as ownership (Gen 21:30), an agreement (Gen 31:52). and a covenant with God (Josh 24:27).^[3] One cannot over-emphasize the significance that a witness played in ancient Hebrew culture. The law placed great significance on the qualities of a witness.

Among those not qualified to be witnesses were the near relations of the accuser or the accused, friends and enemies, gamesters, usurers, tax-gatherers, heathen, slaves, women and those not of age (Ṣanhedhrīn 3:3, 4; Rō’sh Ha-shānāh 1:7; Bābhā Ḳammā’ 88a; cf Ant, IV, viii, 15). No one could be a witness who had been paid to render this service (B^ekhōrōth 4:6). In cases of capital punishment there was an elaborate system of warning and cautioning witnesses. Each witness had to be heard separately (Ṣanhedhrīn 5; cf 3:5). If they contradicted one another on important points their witness was invalidated (Ṣanhedhrīn 5).^[4]

“On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. “The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”^[5]

In the New Testament, the significance of the witness is not diminished. The Greek word translated witness is μαρτυρία. The work of the witness was to testify on behalf of another. John 1:7 captures the essence of the role of the witness: “He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.”^[6] Louw & Nida explain that the word means, “to provide information about a person or an event concerning which the speaker has direct knowledge—‘to witness.”^[7] BDAG explains that it is confirmation or attestation on the basis of personal knowledge or belief, testimony. The witness possesses information that the object of his testimony does not. Why would I need someone to testify to me about an event of which I possessed knowledge? The idea behind the witness is that he possesses information that the non-witness does not. Moreover, it is implied that this information is vital to the circumstances surrounding the event. This point cannot be overemphasized.

In summary then, from this information on witnesses and testimony, we can conclude four things about the concept of witness. Frist, the qualities of a witness are vitally important. Second, the role of the witness is to testify about an event of which he possesses intimate knowledge. Third, the content of the testimony is unknown to the recipients of the testimony. Fourth, the content is not only relevant to the case, it is vital to the circumstances surrounding the case otherwise the testimony would be superfluous. 

My aim in this short post is simply to turn your attention to the significance of the witness in Scripture. Once we understand the significant role the witness played Hebrew culture, we can then begin to grasp the nature and role of the Holy Spirit as the witness to the truth of divine revelation. It my hope that that understanding will influence your approach to Christian apologetics.

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[1]. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (United States: Presbyterian and Reformed, n.d.), 7.

2. Carl Schultz, “1576 עוּד,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 648.

3. Carl Schultz, “1576 עוּד,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 649.

4. Paul Levertoff, “Witness,” ed. James Orr et al., The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Volumes 1–5 (Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company, 1915), 3099.

5. New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Dt 17:6–7.

6. New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Jn 1:7.

7. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 417.

A Manual for Creating Atheists: After the Fall – Filling the Void

Chapter 6 in MCA purports to be a chapter designed to help the faithful (unfaithful actually) who have come to the self-realization that they really didn’t have faith after all, fill the void left when they confess what has already been the case for some time. In other words, these faithless individuals are trying to figure out how to exchange one delusion for another delusion. They want to replace their old delusion, the one where they thought they had faith with a new delusion, one where they now think they don’t believe that God actually exists. Both of these beliefs, the former and the current, are delusions of different kinds. What is very interesting to me is that Boghossian includes an email from one of these individuals asking for help now that he has decided he does not believe that God exists. In the same paragraph he says the following: “I just stopped believing in God. It’s an unbelievable feeling…I just feel lost. Anything you can suggest will help.” I don’t know about you, but it certainly seems to me that this individual made an emotional decision, not a rational one. After all, if he had really examined the evidence, weighed all the facts, looked at the voluminous research available on the question of God, it seems the last thing he would have felt is “lost.”

Does Boghossian offer this man any answers? Yes, he does. He offers him the answer that we just don’t know. Stop searching for answers, for purpose, for meaning. Accept the ignorance that comes with atheism. Learn to embrace it. The real meaning in life is there is no meaning and if there were, we really could never find it out to begin with. There is no real purpose in life so stop searching for it. Gee Pete; thanks for the help…I think. What a nightmare!  

Boghossian wants us to be free to wonder. What he fails to realize is that skepticism is not a necessary precondition for wonder. Christian theism is filled with wonder because it is filled with the infinite God. Has Boghossian ever thought about why the idea of wonder is so attractive, so inviting, so fascinating? In a world of chance, where human existence is arbitrary, how could wonder ever exist or how could we ever make sense out of it? How could wonder ever be intelligible under the atheist's scheme for reality? We love wonder because we are finite. We know there is more to reality than we can imagine. God created us to wonder. Wonder is wired into the human person by the Creator. God is the only plausible explanation for wonder. God must be true in order for wonder to be meaningfully intelligible. Wonder is not something that can be explained empirically. It is not something that the laws of logic can speak to. But it is there, despite the lack of empirical evidence and despite our inability to make a rationally compelling argument for it. It exists and we know it exists despite our inability to adequately account for it upon empirical or rational grounds. Additionally, we are not being irrational for our "belief" that wonder exists. I cannot help but wonder how Boghossian accounts for the existence and intelligibility of wonder.

Boghossian asks, “What comfort does reality-based reasoning offer someone suffering in this life or perhaps even facing death?” His answer is startling: “I don’t know.” If we are all just accidents, here by chance for a few years and then gone, why does any of this matter, really? When it is all said and done, why not let people live with their delusions? Boghossian says that it harms us. But does it really? What does the medical research say about those who have some sort of faith? There is no indication at all that there is psychological harm to the typical person of faith so long as they are not militants looking for 70 virgins when they get to heaven. In fact, the medical research indicates just the opposite: faith is healthy. It makes a positive contribution to our emotional, psychological, and even physical lives. Boghossian offers a life of reason, but also of despair. He offers a life of doxastic openness but one without significance. He promises a life of truth, but one that has many more questions than it has answers. Sounds like a really good deal to me.

Boghossian seems to be very specific in the types of things he thinks people need to be okay “not knowing.” I wonder how one would fare on one of his exams if they just wrote down, “I don’t know.” What Boghossian does not want people to know is if God exists or does not exist. He does not want them to know if morality transcends human opinion. He does not want them to know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of humanity. But he is perfectly fine with people not knowing what happens when they die. He is fine with people not knowing if life, or suffering or pleasure really has meaning. He is fine with philosophers not being able to explain how they can rely on the validity of induction even if no one can provide any evidence for it or provide a rational case for its adequate defense. Boghossian seems perfectly fine in assuming that the human mind exists, and that there is a real external world about which we can truly know certain things. But when it comes to God, when it comes to faith, when it comes to questions that transcend human limitations, Boghossian insists that we must be okay not knowing.

The howler in all of this is that if there really is that much that Boghossian and his atheist friends do not know, then how is it that he can so confidently dismiss faith, or God, or life beyond death. Since there is much he does not know, how can he confidently affirm that no one else can know either? Isn’t it possible that there is an epistemological method that others have discovered about which Boghossian is still unaware? If it is not possible, I fail to see how a logical case can be made against it. It seems such a case would require an all-knowing agent. What is Boghossian’s rational basis for not only saying he does not know, but for also insisting that no one else can know either, since he has already confessed to so many other things he is fine not knowing? He offers none. If Boghossian were consistent with his “doxastic openness” it seems to me that he would be perfectly fine to say, “I don’t know how that person knows that God exists, but I am fine not knowing that.” Boghossian’s doxastic closure to the possibility that others actually know something that he does not is inconsistent with his basic doctrine at best and smacks of hypocrisy at worse. Boghossian’s entire noetic structure is self-referentially incoherent. I hope that you, the reader, can see the obvious gaps in his arguments at this point. It will only become more and more obvious that MCA does nothing of the sort.

A Manual for Creating Atheists: A Reliable Epistemology

Chapter three of “A Manual for Creating Atheists” is truly a very difficult chapter for intelligent people of faith to read. This is not because it offers some profound intellectual challenge to faith. Rather, it is because  Boghossian waxes extremely insulting in the chapter. However, the Christian must resist the temptation to be drawn into Boghossian's unkind ad hominem. Instead, we must critically examine the truthfulness of his propositions, all the while pointing out his philosophical bias, his wild conjectures, and his unproven philosophical assumptions.

Boghossian begins this chapter by setting a priori knowledge and analytic statements over against synthetic statements and a posteriori knowledge. This is an old argument between rationalists and empiricists and one that will likely never be settled. Specifically, he attacks certainty. He writes, “Certainty is an enemy of truth: examination and reexamination are allies of truth.” One cannot help but wonder how knowledge advances or progresses if it has no foundation upon which to advance. I shall return to this criticism later in the post.

Boghossian asserts that, “Faith taints or at worse removes our curiosity about the world.” Seemingly, faith leads to certainty about facts of the world and such certainty allays curiosity. Boghossian thinks, “Faith immutably alters the starting conditions for inquiry by uprooting a hunger to know and sowing a warrantless confidence.” The author of this project speaks with the strangest level of confidence for a man that thinks such confidence is the enemy of knowledge and truth. It is odd to read someone criticize the idea of certainty with such a high degree of, well, certainty.

Boghossian then makes this very puzzling statement, “Once we understand that we don’t possess knowledge, we have a basis to go forward in a life of examination, wonder, and critical reflection.” This statement would be humorous if it wasn’t so disturbing. The critical thinker has to wonder what the basis of our examination and critical thinking might be if we are all ignorant of it. How can one know that we have any basis at all for the pursuit of knowledge? How can one understand that they are knowledge-less? To understand implies a degree of knowledge. And to have adequate understanding to know that exploration is needed and desirable seems like a healthy degree of knowledge. Apparently Boghossian hasn’t the foggiest notion that knowledge depends upon knowledge, and so too does the very notion of examination, wonder, and critical reflection. The necessary precondition for knowledge is knowledge. I must confess that I find Boghossian’s line of reasoning here utterly absurd. At a minimum, knowing that one does not know is knowing. What then is the basis for that knowledge? Boghossian will eventually be forced to disclose his own foundation of beliefs and it is there that we shall find his faith.

From here, the author makes an ethical statement, which is also quite puzzling given his epistemological proclivity: “Wonder, curiosity, honest self-reflection, sincerity, and the desire to know are a solid basis for a life worth living.” I cannot help but ask how Boghossian knows that there is such a thing as “a life worth living.” What does “a life worth living actually look like?” Additionally, is there only one “life worth living” or are there more? Furthermore, what justification can he provide for such a sweeping and universal claim? I wonder if there isn’t an element of faith somewhere in Boghossian’s own worldview. Indeed, if it can be shown that such is the case, the implications for Boghossian’s project could turn out to more than just a little hysterical. After all, his entire thesis, the unreliability of faith as an epistemological method, would rest upon the very thing he so desperately wants to avoid: faith.

The goal of the Street Epistemologist is to “help people destroy foundational beliefs, flimsy assumptions, faulty epistemologies, and ultimately faith.” We cannot tell if Boghossian is speaking of the notion of foundationalism or if he means specific beliefs. As far as it goes, everyone enters this discussion with foundational beliefs. They are impossible to destroy. They can only be replaced with competing foundational beliefs. In addition, I intend to show that every epistemological position is, at bottom, a faith position. The only different is the object in which the faith is placed.

As we move through this particularly offensive, closed-minded, and arrogant chapter, the author once against makes one more outlandish statement about faith: “After all, faith is by definition the belief in something regardless or even in spite of the evidence.” The idea is that Christian faith has absolutely no evidence to offer and in fact, it exists in spite of the evidence against it. Boghossian then points to the Gervais & Norenzyan 2012 study that supposedly concludes that analytic thinking promotes religious disbelief. What Boghossian does not tell us is that most of the subjects in that study came from a liberal Canadian university, hence, highly underrepresenting the typical North American population. Suffice it to say that the study to which Boghossian refers is a real howler.

Boghossian spends a lot of time on what he calls “Doxastic Closure.” This is what happens when a person holds to a belief that is resistant to revision, supposedly regardless of the evidence. Boghossian says, “This puts people in a type of bubble that filters out ideologically disagreeable data and opinions.” I wonder if “doxastic closure” is the same thing as dismissing the reliability of faith as an epistemology from the start, because it does not meet one’s ideas of their criteria for justification.

Boghossian tell us that doxastic openness is a willingness and ability to revise beliefs. One has to wonder what sort of evidence Boghossian would need in order to justify a belief. Suppose someone asks him to be open to changing his criteria for justification, how do we think he might respond? Boghossian’s view of his ability to be purely objective about these matters seems more than a little naive.

I could continue my review of chapter three, but I will stop with one more Boghossian assertion that is nothing short of outrageous. He writes, “This section will unpack two primary reasons for this appearance of failure: either (1) an interlocutor’s brain is neurologically damaged, or (2) you’re actually succeeding.” He continues, “In Short, if someone is suffering from a brain-based faith delusion your work will be futile.” If Boghossian means for people to take his project serious, then he should leave aside such insulting conjectures and ad hominem and explain to his atheist colleagues that it could be due to the fact that their arguments rest upon a hopeless irrationalism, are not supported by the evidence, and most of all, contradict the truth of God revealed in Scripture, which is actually why intelligent Christians reject them. One has to do more than link together a bunch of ad hominem statements if they hope to persuade others of the validity concerning their point of view.  

The Christian response to Boghossian then is to ask him to justify the certainty with which he condemns certainty. Boghossian claims that certainty is an enemy of the truth and about this he seems to be quite certain. Boghossian’s whole enterprise seems to be that faith aims for certainty. His argument goes something like this: examination and reexamination are allies of truth. Certainty endangers examination. Without examination truth is endangered. Faith produces certainty. Therefore, faith endangers truth. But one has to ask why truth ceases to be truth once we become certain of it. I am certain that 2+2 = 4. I do not need to examine the equation again. I do not need to reexamine the equation again. I am certain it is true. Boghossian tells us that truth is threatened by certainty, but he fails to illustrate for us just why he thinks this is the case.

Boghossian’s claim that faith removes our curiosity about the world is manifestly misleading. The fact that Christian theism asserts that there are some things, about which we can be certain, does nothing to quell intellectual adventure or curiosity about the many things we do not and even cannot be certain about. It does not follow that certainty about the existence of God leads to certainty about all of reality. The fact of God’s existence does nothing to eliminate mystery, adventure, or curiosity of all of the facts of God’s universe and of the revelation of Himself both in nature and in Scripture. Apparently Boghossian is unfamiliar with the voluminous materials and documents produced by theologians over the centuries, all designed to inform, to question, to wonder, and to search for the truth.

Boghossian implies that he believes there is a life worth living. This implies that life has value, worth, and meaning. It also implies that not just any life has value, worth, and meaning, but rather, a specific kind of life. Moreover, without saying so, it implies that there is at least one kind of life that is not worth living. Now, apparently, the life worth living is a life filled with wonder, curiosity, honest self-reflection, sincerity, and the desire to know. But why isn’t a life filled with certainty, apathy, insensitive selfishness, insincerity, and epistemological disinterest? In addition, why isn’t the life that mixes these traits worth living? Are there more than one lives worth living? Why this life and not that life? Boghossian opens Pandora’s Box and closing it is not a task I would desire.

Over and over again Boghossian claims that faith is based on a lack of evidence. Or he tells us that faith is unreliable and unreasonable all because of its apparent lack of evidence. What Boghossian has not done so far is tell us what type of evidence he means. One man is convicted for murder because there were two credible eyewitnesses that saw him do it. Another man is convicted of murder because of the forensic evidence gathered at the scene and his inability to provide a legitimate alibi. What exactly constitutes evidence? This is the problem of the criterion. If Boghossian is going to assert that faith is not rational, then the burden of proof is on him. And such proof must begin with what he means when he uses such terms as evidence, reasonable, justification, warrant, and rational. We know that self-evident propositions exist. They do not require evidence to be rational. We do not require justification in order to believe them. And we know that other propositions are not self-evident. Boghossian needs to explain to us sooner rather than later, precisely what is the nature of these propositions that require warrant and exactly what that warrant must look like in order to be rational.

The problem so far with Boghossian’s epistemology is that it is guilty of epistemic circularity. Epistemic circularity is a malady from which an argument for the reliability of a faculty or source of belief suffers when one of its premises is such that my acceptance of that premise originates in the operation of the very faculty or source of belief in question. [Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 119] When Boghossian asks us to accept his standard for what is rational in order to determine what is rationally justifiable, he is asking us to accept what is essentially an epistemologically circular argument. Epistemic circularity is only curable in Christian theism where the source of all knowledge is transcendent. On to chapter four.

TAG: Dealing with Conceptual Necessity and Ontological Necessity

One of the questions I heard from the audience at the SES debate between Jason Lisle, Richard Howe, and Scott Oliphint had to do with the idea of conceptual necessity and ontological necessity in TAG. The question was directed at Richard Howe. Unfortunately, Howe did not address the question. So I hope to give it a little more treatment here. I only ask that you recognize this is a theologian speaking and not a philosopher. You may want to note that point when you recognize the obvious absence of philosophical jargon in my post.

TAG is a presuppositional apologetic tactic that stands for the Transcendental Argument for God. In my last post I defended TAG over against the classical method and tried to be as brief and as simple as I know how. I am sure I left a lot to be desired from those who are more adept in Christian apologetics. I humbly request that the reader keep in mind that my goal is to reach a broader audience. I want to stimulate and challenge those who are familiar with this field as well as encourage others to become more familiar with this field. Sometimes that task exceeds the skills and limitations of this blogger’s abilities. But I am working on it every week, bit by bit.

One of the most challenging objections to TAG is the fact that conceptual necessity does not require ontological necessity. Michael Butler frames the problem for us: “The challenge is, this, to bridge the gap between having to believe the Christian worldview because it provides the necessary preconditions of experience and showing that the Christian worldview is true.” Perhaps I should explain what I mean by “conceptual scheme.” A conceptual scheme, in this context, is a way or method of organizing our thoughts and experiences in order to make sense of the world. The underlying premise is that good conceptual schemes are subject to rational justification. Therefore, a conceptual scheme that is irrational should be abandoned. While it is true that Christianity, if viewed as a conceptual scheme, is superior, it does not follow that it is necessarily true. It only means that Christianity provides the necessary preconditions for experience. It simply means that Christianity has succeeded in constructing a way to organize our thoughts and experiences that is impervious to the objections and challenges of its competitors. Hence, conceptual necessity says nothing about truthfulness. In other words, conceptual necessity does not necessarily lead to ontological necessity.

The problem with this objection to TAG is that it is a mistake to view Christianity as merely a conceptual scheme. The Christian apologist is not merely interested in providing the unbeliever with the best or even the only conceptual scheme that makes experience intelligible. He is interested in much more than that. He is interested in proclaiming and defending the truth. He is, after all, not a philosopher as much as he is a Christian theologian, and a follower of Christ. He does not seek to wax philosophical, but rather to confront unbelief with the power of the gospel. He knows that only the power of the gospel can effect what he desperately seeks: radical and supernatural change. It is not an argument he seeks to win, but a heart. He does not enter the intellectual parade that so many others do when they have these discussions. Rather, he seeks to persuade men that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. That no man finds God, or the truth, except through Him!

TAG is a powerful argument because it is constructed upon man’s ultimate epistemological authority, God’s Word. It is an argument that is built upon the fact of God and His creation. What many young apologists seek is something that should be of grave concern to the Church. They seek an approach that is, for the most part, philosophy through and through. In fact, William Lane Craig promotes this sort of pursuit. Richard Howe himself did not pursue a theological education. He is educated in philosophy. For many young apologists, this is the preferred way. Martin Luther wrote, “What are the universities, as at present…schools of Greek fashion and heathenish manners, full of dissolute living, where very little is taught of the Holy Scriptures and of the Christian faith, and the blind heathen teacher, Aristotle, rules even further than Christ. Now my advice would be that the books of Aristotle, the ‘Physics,’ the ‘Metaphysics,’ ‘Of the Soul,’ and ‘Ethics,’ which have hitherto been considered the best, be altogether abolished, with all others that profess to treat of nature, though nothing can be learned from them, either of natural or spiritual things. Besides, no one has been able to understand his meaning, and much time has been wasted, and many vexed with much useless labor, study, and expense.” [Luther, Three Treatises, 4, 92-93, via, McManis see below]

“Instead of writing in clear, perspicuous, practical, accessible language, they {Christian apologists} opt for specialized oft incomprehensible metaphysical terminology that the average Christian does not understand.” [McManis, Biblical Apologetics, 362-3] Clearly, something has gone wrong in Christian apologetics and we must work hard to correct it. The transcendental argument for God is an appeal to the authority of Scripture. Positively, it contends that we have to take God at His word. Negatively, it subjects all non-Christian worldviews to a vicious, but fair internal critique. It demands that they be able to justify their system without contradictions and inconsistencies.

TAG argues for God from the impossibility of the contrary. “A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such a fact must be, in order to make it what it is.” [Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, 10] For the Christian, no fact can be what it is, apart from God. Every fact is what it is because God has made it to be what it is. However for the unbeliever, it is a remarkably different story. When we turn the guns of reason on the non-Christian worldview, something very interesting happens. The non-Christian worldview, in all its different versions, is shown to be arbitrary, inconsistent with itself, or entirely lacking the preconditions necessary for the intelligibility of knowledge. {Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic, 513]

I agree wholeheartedly with Clifford McManis when he argues that philosophy has hi-jacked Christian apologetics. This seems profoundly obvious to me. The apologetic mandate of Scripture is given to every single believer. It is within the power of each and every Christian to engage in this practice. It is not reserved for some manufactured office of “apologist,” fabricated by lovers of philosophy. There is no such gift or office, alluded to in Scripture. What is declared in Scripture is that all believers must give a reason for the hope that is in them with gentleness and respect. This begins with the authority of God’s truth, the preaching of the gospel of Christ, and the demolition of every mouth that seeks to subvert God’s truth. That is precisely what TAG seeks to accomplish without compromise.

A Presuppositional Approach to the Defense of Scripture - Part 1 of ??

There are a lot of squabbles written in favor of, as well as in opposition to, the claim that the Bible is the Word of God. Most of these arguments are written predominantly from a traditional or classical apologetics perspective. Typically, we come to this question with criteria for evaluating such claims already in hand. The objective is to answer very basic questions about this specific claim that Christians make concerning the Bible, or to put it another way, the nature of Scripture. The question we are asking is first and foremost, Is the Bible the Word of God? The number of those who deny this claim far outweighs the number that affirms it. Turning to the visible Church and Christian scholarship is of little help in answering this question. The fact most people deny the Christian claim cannot be part of the criteria for judging the truthfulness of the claim. We are not interested in committing the fallacy of appealing to the populace. The truth of a proposition is not determined by the number of people who affirm or deny it.

 A second question that merits attention centers on the type of evidence necessary for making belief in the Bible as the Word of God rational. What kind of evidence is necessary to conclude that belief in the Bible as the Word of God is in fact a rational belief? That is to say, what type of evidence supports the rational justification for the claim that the Bible is the word of God? Some would argue that the question is a religious question and therefore not subject to the laws of science or logic. It is purely a leap of faith. If this is true, then anything goes when it comes to all claims that happen to have a religious nature. However, Christian theism contends that its views are perfectly rational and consistent with sound scientific methods, properly so-called.

 Additionally, what evidence ought to persuade rational human beings to accept the Bible as the Word of God? It is one thing for a Christian to affirm that the Bible is the Word of God. But it is an entirely different matter to claim that there is rational justification for believing that the Bible is the Word of God. If this is true, then every rational person ought to accept the claim that the Bible is the Word of God and respond accordingly. And indeed, this is the message of repentance that is witnessed in and spread by the Christian religion. Men ought to humbly acknowledge God and willingly submit to His authoritative Word, also known as the Bible. Put quite simply, this is the essence of the Christian message.

 These questions, in my opinion, are very meaningful and should contribute handsomely to the discussion I am about to conduct. In fact, if one has read the article by Paul Helm "Faith, Evidence, and the Scriptures" in the book "Scripture and Truth," they probably recognize them. Dr. Helm does a magnificent job of framing up the questions for us and a brilliant job of answering them. It is not easy, however, to keep these questions in the forefront of one's mind as they read through the issues that are related to such a weighty topic. And this is especially difficult for a presuppositionalist to do. After all, presuppositionalism fancies itself to situate the foundation of every claim and counterclaim it encounters. It is this way by nature.

 The purpose of this paper is to provide a presuppositional approach for the defense of the Bible as the Word of God. My goal is to deliver an argument that is consistent with Scripture itself, and therefore, one that is consistently presuppositional in nature. Presuppositions by nature demand internal consistency. The difference between the presuppositional approach and the traditional approach is that the traditional approach makes numerous external appeals to autonomous human reason and the so-called brute facts of history in order to support its defense of Scripture as the Word of God. The presuppositional approach, as I shall hope to make clear, is distinguished by its unique place in the transcendental argument for God's existence.

A good analogy for the two approaches is the difference between a portrait and a puzzle. They could both be displaying the same scene. However, the puzzle can be taken apart and put back together piece by piece under the supervision of the person creating it. On the other hand, a portrait is a portrait. It is the finished product of the artist and cannot be deconstructed and reconstructed at the mercy of another. The only option open to the observer of a portrait is that of interpretation. So it is with the methods underlying the arguments in support of or in denial of the claim that the Bible is the Word of God. I hope to show how the claim itself is actually part of the complete portrait of the Christian worldview and that it is therefore invalid and unsound to attempt to argue in a jigsaw puzzle fashion, which is what I think the traditional approach actually does.

It seems to me that there is something very curious about Helm’s three questions concerning the nature of Scripture. No doubt it obtains that we must have some idea, about not only measuring claims, but also that we innately know it is right to measure claims. That is to say that we have some preunderstanding about how claims should be measured prior to the fact. We not only know that we should measure, but we also have some basic idea about how we should go about it. The problem enters when we begin to talk about ultimate reference points for measuring. We must ask the question, what must also be true in order for the idea of judging or measuring to be true. Would such a scenario make sense in a world of chance? If the Bible is the Word of God, as it claims to be and as Christianity affirms it to be, it follows that the argument that advances the affirmative must be bound up in and indelibly linked to the argument for the truth of Christian theism.