Is Atheism a Worldview?

In my interactions with atheists, one of the most common tactics I have observed is the claim that atheism is not a worldview. Atheism is not belief, but the absence of belief. It is not a claim, but the absence of a claim. Therefore, or so it goes, atheism does not need a defense. Another interesting tactic employed by atheists is the move to redefine it. Atheism does not claim that God does not exist, but merely claims that there isn’t enough evidence to support the belief that He does. What is a Christian to do? How should we think about these tactics? The goal of this post is offer some suggestions for how you might think about these tactics, and from that thinking, how you might respond or challenge an atheist who happens to be employing them.

First of all, what is a worldview? A worldview is any paradigm that rests upon basic presuppositions that serve to inform how you interpret, understand, or view the world, or this reality in which we find ourselves. Worldviews typically seek to answer basic questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and morality. So, the question would be simply this: does atheism seek to answer questions about the nature of reality, the nature of how human beings know things about that reality, and the nature of right and wrong? It seems uncontroversial to me that atheism denies that this reality is the product a supernatural act performed by God, that human knowledge is the natural operation of the human brain, and that right and wrong can be known without reference to a transcendent being. By simple definition, atheism is a worldview and ought to be treated as such. That there are various theories regarding metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics within atheism does not ipso facto rule it out as falling within the definition of a worldview.

The second claim is that atheism is not a belief, but a lack of belief. Atheism is not making any claims. The Christian ought to ask if such a situation is possible. Atheism, like other systems not only includes beliefs about reality, about human knowledge, and about ethics, but also beliefs about how beliefs ought to be formed.

Atheist: Atheism is not a belief, but a lack of belief.

Christian: In what exactly is atheism a lack of belief?

Atheist: Atheism is a lack of belief in God.

Christian: Why does atheism lack belief in God?

Atheist: Atheism lacks belief in God because there isn’t evidence that God exists.

Christian: So Atheism believes that all beliefs should have evidence to support them.

Atheist: yes.

Christian: Isn’t that a belief?

Atheist: Not really.

Christian: Of course it is. What evidence can you provide that demonstrates that all beliefs must have evidence to support them? Does “this belief” that all beliefs should have evidence to support them, have evidence to support it?

Atheist: It is self-evident.

Christian: How is it self-evident? A self-evident belief is one who’s denial entails a self-contradiction. My denial that all beliefs require evidence to support them is in no way self-contradictory.

The claim that atheism is merely a lack of belief is demonstrably false. The claim that atheism makes no claims is a claim as well. I said that the claim that all beliefs should be supported by evidence is not self-evident. Now, let’s look at the opposite view. Here is an argument that you should think about:

Assertion –> Belief

Assertion

/Belief

This is the Modus Ponens form of the argument. Now, notice something very interesting. If you want to get to the conclusion of no beliefs, you have to deny assertions. What happens when you deny assertions? Think about it. Can you deny assertions without engaging in self-contradiction? Indeed, you cannot. This argument, taken transcendentally, is making the case that belief is the necessary condition of assertion. In order to deny assertion, one must deny belief. But we cannot deny belief without presupposing it. The claim is self-defeating because it entails contradiction. This means that we know that beliefs are the necessary condition of assertions because of the impossibility of the contrary. And the contrary is impossible because it involves contradiction. In other words it is impossible to assert non-belief about God without expressing some belief about God.

Assertion –> Belief

~Belief

/~Assertion

This is the Modus Tollens form of the argument. It says that belief is the necessary condition of assertion, but that there is no belief and therefore, no assertion. However, the argument cannot be made unless there is assertion and on the face of it, it is false because it entails self-contradiction. In other words, the conclusion of this argument is made impossible by the very existence of the argument. think about it this way, my assertion that there is no belief is impossible to assert since belief if the necessary condition of assertion. The argument is valid as far as form goes. But since the second premise false, the argument is unsound.

Is atheism a worldview? Indeed, it is. Is it true that atheism is merely a lack of belief about God’s existence? It is not since such a claim is self-contradictory. Is it the case that atheism makes no claims? It is not the case since the very proposition of “making no claims” is itself a claim. What Christians have to do is move slower in these encounters, think about what is being asserted, and ask what has to be true in order for the claim to be true. Atheists are atheists because they are unwilling to acknowledge the God’s existence and the evidence all around us and within us that demonstrates God is there. God has made Himself known.

I have employed a transcendental argument to refute the atheistic claims that atheism is not a worldview, does not assert belief and makes no claims. If a transcendental argument is sound its conclusion cannot be denied without self-contradiction.[1]

[1] See Ronney Mourad, Transcendetal Arguments and Justified Christian Belief (University Press of America).

The Transcendent and The Transcendental

Transcendent and transcendental are two theological terms that can be easily confused. The best way to understand the difference is to understand the respective meaning of the terms, and perhaps even more importantly, how they relate to one another.

When we say that something is transcendent we are saying that it is beyond the limitations and ordinary range of human experience. We are referring to a state of being that is above and beyond the normal limitations of the material universe. God is a transcendent being, which means that God extends beyond the limitations and ordinary range of human experience and the material universe.

John Frame writes, "The concept of transcendence builds on biblical texts that describe God as "most High" (Gen. 14:18-22; Deut. 32:8) or "high and lifted up (Isa. 6:1)." [Frame, Systematic Theology, 39] We don't hear much about God's transcendence in American Pop-Christianity. Nevertheless, the only philosophically defensible version of Christian is the one expressed in Scripture. American culture has hi-jacked Christianity and transformed it into a man-centered psychological mechanism designed to serve the urges, whims, and desires of greedy, materialistic Americans. To be sure, American culture is not alone. Christianity has always been subject to the perversions of every culture in which it finds itself. Yet, it cannot be over-emphasized that Christian apologists must seek to defend the particular God of biblical Christianity in particular. The particular God of Christian theism is the absolute God who transcends space and time. This God can only be defended using a very specific method if we are to avoid proving that God is nothing more than the pagan finite god of the Greek philosophers.

It is easy to confuse the transcendent with the transcendental. When we say that something is transcendental we are usually referring to a concept in philosophy. Transcendentalism is a system of philosophy that emphasizes the spiritual and the intuitive above the empirical and the material and even perhaps the rational. For the purpose of this project, transcendental refers to a very specific method for arriving at truth claims. “One of the rhetorical effects of a faithfully executed apologetic is that the unbeliever proves to indirectly affirm the truth of the Christian worldview as he relies on induction, logic, predication, and other tools to construct a position that so thoroughly undermines them.”[1] 

It is the nature of the transcendental argument to indirectly prove that the unbeliever’s inductive and/or deductive approach actually destroys itself by showing that the very foundations for his epistemology are unintelligible and self-refuting of the ultimate commitments necessary for his own conceptual scheme. In other words, his later beliefs refute his earlier or more basic beliefs. 

The inductive method begins with the supposed brute facts of the universe and from those facts moves through a series of arguments to a particular conclusion. The inductive approach seeks to provide conclusions that are highly probable. The degree of probability is in direct correlation to the strength of the evidence supporting the claims. Contrary to induction, the deductive method seeks to provide rational certainty about specific claims. Provided an argument is valid, that is to say that if the conclusion follows logically from the premises, and provided that the premises are true, it follows that a deductive argument is sound and certain.

Van Til would take strong exception to Christian apologists using either method. Both methods rely solely on the natural man’s ability to organize brute facts in the universe and reason correctly about those facts apart from and independent of God. The Christian apologist, precisely because he is defending the claim that there is an absolute, self-contained, transcendent God, cannot possibly rely on induction and deduction to argue for such a God. The very transcendent nature of God requires a very different method if it is to be faithful to the God it seeks to announce and defend.

“But we realize even more clearly and definitively the distinctiveness of transcendental arguments when we contrast their logical character (that is, the truth-functional relation of their conclusions to their premise) with that of rational and empirical arguments.”[2] 

The transcendental argument for God then begins with uncontroversial aspects of human experience, such as morality, or love for instance, and claims that the existence of the Christian God is the necessary precondition of those experiences. TAG asks what has to be the case in order for x to be the case? The argument form basically says that for x to be the case y has to be the case because y is the necessary precondition for x.[3] 

The transcendental argument then explores what else has to be the case since human rationality is the case.

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[1] B. A. Bosserman, The Trinity and the Vindication of Christian Paradox (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2014), 93.

[2] Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&​r Publishing, 1998), 501.

[3] See Michael Butler’s paper, The Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence.

Thinking About the Transcendental Argument

We must point out to them that univocal reasoning itself leads to self-contradiction, not only from a theistic point of view, but from a non-theistic point of view as well. It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we must meet our enemy on their own ground. It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we reason from the impossibility of the contrary. [Cornelius Van Til]

Sounds a little intimidating to most Christians and for good reason. Most Christians do not read Van Til. Most Christians do not read philosophy. Most Christians do not read theology. Most Christians hardly read the Bible. In fact, many, many Christians hardly read at all. That is the very sad state of affairs that we are faced with in modern American culture. It must change!

What does Van Til mean by the little phrase “impossibility of the contrary?” Some would contend that Van Til’s argument fails precisely in this very place. They would argue that establishing the impossibility of the contrary is not really the same as showing that the non-Christian worldview is ipso facto untruthful simply on the basis that it is contrary to the Christian worldview. But this response demonstrates a lack of understanding of Van Til on this point. Let me explain what I mean.

Copi tells us that “Two propositions are said to be contraries if they cannot both be true – that is, if the truth of one entails the falsity of the other – but both can be false…Contraries cannot both be true, but unlike contradictories, they can both be false.” [Copi, Introduction to Logic, 177] The problem with applying the traditional square of opposition to Van Til’s transcendental argument is that the rule itself only applies to contingent propositions. Another problem with the claim that Van Til’s “impossibility of the contrary” fails is that the assertion seems to ignore the difference between Boolean and Aristotelian logic and the question of existential import. Can universal propositions have existential import? Whether A and E propositions (universal propositions) have existential import is an issue on which the Aristotelian and Boolean interpretations of propositions differ. [Loci, 190]

The real question here is who decides if universal propositions can have existential import? We must be prepared to answer that question. Christian theism must assert that universal propositions not only can, but some do have existential import. The Christian God is the God that actually exists. That is a universal proposition with existential import. Logic itself cannot settle the dispute and it certainly cannot be the final arbiter of truth in assessing the reliability of Van Til’s transcendental approach.

The accusation that the transcendental argument violates the traditional square of opposition is to subject the argument to the idea of contingency, something Van Til would forcefully, and rightly oppose. What then is Van Til attempting to do in his transcendental method? What does he actually mean, in simple terms, when he says that Christian theism is proved true because of the impossibility of the contrary?

First of all, it has everything to do with relating the facts of reality, as they are known, correctly and with the notion of human autonomy. The transcendental method seeks to demonstrate that unless God is our epistemological starting point in all predication that nothing can be made intelligible in human experience. The transcendental approach simply asks a very basic question: what must be the case in order for the intelligibility of human experience to be the case? It is uncontroversial that human experience is intelligible. But what has to also be the case if that intelligibility is the case?

There are only two options open to us from which to begin to answer this question. One position begins with human autonomy. Man is the ultimate reference point for rationality, for all knowledge from one perspective. The other perspective is that man is derivative of God, a creature, and as a creature his knowledge must also be derivative. In this view, God is the final reference point for knowledge. All facts must be viewed in terms of their relationship to God and His creation of them as facts.

Van Til writes, “The contrary is impossible only if it is self-contradictory when operating on the basis of its own assumptions.” Not only are contradictory claims to Christian theism unable to approach and challenge Christian truth seriously, they cannot even stand themselves up on their own two feet. The non-Christian worldview, in all its stripes, involves internal conflict, that is, self-contradiction. Hence, this alone is enough to place rational human beings in the position of abandoning it. But abandon the non-Christian worldview on purely a rational basis, fallen men do not do. Rather, fallen men hold firmly, in their spiritually dead and ethically depraved fingers, to an irrational outlook. And such behavior can only be explained by the supernatural revelation that is Scripture.

Van Til continues, “We do not really argue ad hominem unless we show that someone’s position involves self-contradiction, and there is no self-contradiction unless one’s reasoning is shown to be directly contradictory of or to lead to conclusions which are contradictory of one’s own assumptions.” How can man be free to gain knowledge in a deterministic system? Additionally, if everything is pure contingency, how could knowledge ever be gained when there can be no relationship between particulars and the general? Christians must be prepared to answer questions, but we must also be prepared to ask them as well.

I will conclude with another point that cannot be over-emphasized in Christian Apologetics. Van Til writes, “The miracle of regeneration has to occur somewhere, and all that we are arguing for is that we must ask where it is that the Holy Spirit will most likely perform this miracle. And then there can be no doubt but that the likelihood is in favor of that place where the non-theist has to some extent seen the emptiness and vanity of his own position.”

The Impossibility of the Contrary

We must point out to them that univocal reasoning itself leads to self-contradiction, not only from a theistic point of view, but from a non-theistic point of view as well. It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we must meet our enemy on their own ground. It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we reason from the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary is impossible only if it is self-contradictory when operating on the basis of its own assumptions.^[1]

I realize that philosophy students will argue that just because Christian theism rules out other views, that does not mean that Christian theism is vindicated. After all, two contrary propositions may both be false. Moreover, others are ready to inform us that the proposition God exists is in fact not an analytic statement and therefore predicate logic would show that two contraries can both be false, and hence proving the impossibility of the contrary essentials proves nothing. In addition, others will unwittingly take up Kant's position that existence is not a property and argue along these lines. But I think all this rambling is philosophical poppycock. It is the product of an undue influence of pagan philosophy on a subject that rightly belongs to biblical theology. Moreover, I do not think that Christians are under an ethical obligation to answer the philosopher in a way that meets with the philosopher's approval. In other words, we need not unduly concern ourselves with the fact that philosophers and skeptics insist on a philosophical approach to our answer. Our concern is with God's imperative in such matters, not the respect of pagan philosophers. That being said, I would like to provide a different sort of defense for how Presuppositional Apologetics employs the transcendental argument.

First, I wish to talk about what the argument is not claiming. Presuppositional apologetics is not claiming that the reason we believe Christian theism is true is because of the impossibility of the contrary. Logic is not the basis for faith. The basis for our faith is the divine revelation given in Scripture. We place our faith in Christ, in God, on the basis of the authority of His word as the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to know and understand it.

Second, PA is not using logic to demonstrate the existence of God. The argument is using God to demonstrate why logic is even possible. Transcendental arguments take on (roughly) the following form: For x to be the case, y must be the case because y is the necessary precondition of x; since x is the case, y must be the case.[2] For logic to be the case, God must exist because God is the necessary precondition of logic. Since logic is the case, God must be the case. We can apply this to the whole of human experience and state it this way: in order for there to be intelligibility of human experience, God must exist since God is the necessary precondition of all human experience. Human experience is intelligible; therefore God must be the case. In other words, the only plausible explanation for the phenomenon of laws of logic is Christian theism.

What the transcendental argument asks of the non-Christian worldview is that it provide a rational basis for its understanding of human experience. What must be true in order for the non-Christian worldview's claims that human experience is intelligible apart from Christian theism? The transcendental argument in Presuppositional apologetics uses a reductio ad absurdum to demonstrate that the non-Christian worldview reduces to self-contradiction. It eventually becomes rationally indefensible.

The solution to this problem is not located in philosophy. Repeatedly, for some reason, Christian apologists think that it is. As a matter of fact, it is not. The solution to this problem is revealed in Scripture, believe it or not. Now, I realize to those intellectuals concerned with academic respectability and for the rest that simply relish the idea of being smarter than the rest of us, my suggestion likely rings hollow, naïve, and far too simplistic to be of any value. In answer to that line of reasoning my response is even simpler: I don't care. All I care about is providing a truthful answer using a method that honors God. If that method happens to be simple, and not wrought with one philosophical complexity after another, then so be it, or maybe, even better!

Romans one and the indefensible position of the non-Christian worldview.

ἀναπολόγητος is a fascinating word used by Paul in Romans 1:20 to describe the status of the arguments among those that either reject the existence of God or corrupt God's existence as revealed in Scripture. The lexical sense of the word means inexcusable. In essence the word is the negation of another Greek word ἀπολογίαν, which we know basically means to "defend oneself" according to BDAG. Essentially, Paul is claiming that all men have been given such clear understanding and knowledge of God's existence that they are without any excuse not to embrace that truth. When Christian apologists encounter non-Christians, the whole point is that the Christian provides an answer or defense of his faith to the non-Christian while the non-Christian is supposedly providing rational argumentation or a defense for why he rejects Christian theism. That is the general thrust of what is taking place in these exchanges be they one on one, or on the street corner, in the tavern over a beer, at lunch, or in a formal debate.

Paul's approach was to begin with God and then proceed to argue that there is not even evidence to support the conclusion that God does not exist, or more precisely, the God revealed in Scripture does not exist. Paul says that the non-Christian worldview, in whatever shape of form it may take is so weak that it is without a defense, without an apologetic if you will. When the presuppositionalist says that Christian theism is true because of the impossibility of the contrary, it is exactly this that he should mean. God says it is impossible to defend any concept of God that is not distinctly based on His revelation, or the absolute reality of His existence as it is. No man has ever lived that could ever defend the proposition "God does not exist" or "the God revealed in Scripture does not exist." It is impossible to provide an adequate defense for such statement.

Biblical faith and epistemic certainty.

I will forego a discussion of the various concepts of certainty in preference for a biblical view of faith and how a proper understanding of the biblical concept of faith leads to certainty. Moreover, if you are more impressed with the philosophically complex arguments of epistemic and psychological certainty than you are with biblical certainty, I would encourage you to examine your heart and schedule a meeting with your pastor.

Hebrews 11:1 tells us, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not see." Thus, it is best to take the clause in 11:1 to have an objective sense with the meaning “faith gives substance to what is hoped for,” and not a subjective sense that faith is the assurance that what is hoped for will come to pass (although this latter perspective is certainly true).^[3] To understand faith in the objective sense is critical to how we might answer the question of certainty. Allen continues, As Lane pointed out, “faith” is objective because it bestows upon the objects of hope a present reality, enabling the believer to enjoy now the “full certainty of future realization.” Faith is the objective grounds upon which subjective confidence may be based. Such faith springs from a personal encounter with God. This kind of faith enables one to venture into the future “supported only by the word of God.”^[4]

The Hebrew word 'āman is no less significant. The Theological Workbook of the Old Testament defines it in the following way: to confirm, support, uphold in the Qal, but in the Hiphal, it means to be certain, to believe in. This very important concept in biblical doctrine gives clear evidence of the biblical meaning of “faith” in contradistinction to the many popular concepts of the term. At the heart of the meaning of the root is the idea of certainty^[5] In the Hiphil (causative), it basically means “to cause to be certain, sure” or “to be certain about,” “to be assured.” In this sense the word in the Hiphil conjugation is the biblical word for “to believe” and shows that biblical faith is an assurance, a certainty, in contrast with modern concepts of faith as something possible, hopefully true, but not certain.^[6] This is quite contrary to the modern view of faith.

Conclusion

To claim that Christian theism is true because of the impossibility of the contrary is to claim that only Christian theism provides the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of human experience. One by one, the metaphysic, epistemology, and ethic of every attempt to explain human experience outside of Christian theism reduces to absurdity. What you end up with is philosophers claim things like "stones have a level of perception," and every ethical system ever constructed apart from Christian theism reduces to subjectivist views or are radically arbitrary. We end up with brilliant minds claiming that we can't really know anything about reality and constructing the most convoluted arguments you could imagine to prove it. If that isn't a howler, nothing is.

"The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple." Ps. 119:130

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^[1] Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1969).

[2] See Michael Butler's article "The Transcendental Argument for God's Existence."

^[3] David L. Allen, Hebrews, The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2010), 543.

^[4] David L. Allen, Hebrews, The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2010), 543.

^[5] Jack B. Scott, “116 אָמַן,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 51.

^[6] Jack B. Scott, “116 אָמַן,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 51.