I have been attempting to get to grips with presupositionalism and am finding it all very interesting. I am finding Van Til a bit hard to get to grips with but I did find his analysis of mans sin in eating from the tree of knowledge (in "the defence of the faith") to be jaw droppingly good.

Am I correct in saying that when a non christian says that there is no evidence of a God the presupositional Christian would counter by saying that there is clear proof of God (i.e. creation) but the non Christian does not recognise this evidence due to his own presuppositions?

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Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
England

"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."

In a nutshell, the presuppositionalist would say that the greatest proof of the existence of God is the impossibility of the contrary.

edit: and yes, the anti-theist cannot properly recognize the evidence due to his presuppositions, but it's not enough to leave it there. Otherwise, the argument for both worldviews would be at a standstill. Rather, the best question to pose is which worldview can survive an internal critique?

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Vaughn Shideler
St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church
Toronto, ON, Canada

This is true. The God of the Scriptures is the best explanation for the world in which we live. All other theories are impossible, and therefore can be shown to lead to contradiction (since man retains the image of God, we can show this by reducing their arguments to absurdity).

Pro 26:4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest you also be like him.
Pro 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest he be wise in his own eyes.

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Jeff Bartel
Mechanical Engineer
Member - Trinity Reformed Church - RPCNA

"To believe in the power of man in the work of regeneration is the great heresy of Rome, and from that error has come the ruin of the Church. Conversion proceeds from the grace of God alone, and the system which ascribes it partly to man and partly to God is worse than Pelagianism" (The Reformation in England (London, 1962), Vol. 1, p. 98)

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I wish I knew more about presuppositionalism; I am more familiar with the evidential territory.

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Dan Pemberton
Vacaville, CA

Member, First Baptist Church San Luis Obispo
Formerly ABUSA (We left, so I guess that makes us American Baptists Unleashed!)

I had this discussion this evening my wife. Why doesn't the unbeliever recognize the evidence of God? Two passages come to mind.

Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

1 Corinthians 2:14 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

The unbeliever is incapable of understanding "the things of the Spirit of God." This would include natural revelation. The unbeliever remains in this state unless God changes the status quo.

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Bill Brown
Elder
Reformed Baptist
Maryland

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Check out "Always Ready" by Bahnsen; I have long thought that was a very good presentation of a presuppositionalist approach to apologetics. Frame has a decent book, too - "Apologetics to the Glory of God", which I haven't read - and Pratt's "Every Thought Captive" is a very short introduction to the same. Finally, you have to get "The Defense of the Faith" by Van Til himself. If you really want to dig deeper, get Banshen's "Van Til's Apologetic"

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Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://inprincipiodeus.solideogloria.com
http://puritanwisdom.blogspot.com

"As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low."
John Flavel in Keeping the Heart



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Bahnsen's book on Van Til does a good job of summing up why and how non-Christian philosophy has not been able to harmonize universals with particulars.

At any rate, I feel that the presuppositionalist argument is very strong - the notion that, absent God, the notion of "proof" itself would be impossible. That only the existence of God can explain logic, numbers, minds, universals, particulars, infinites, etc. But I think the presuppositionalist needs to be ready to study their philosophy in depth - some have been guilty on relying on snappy answers without much depth. So if the unbeliever asks where is the proof that God is the source of logic, abstracts, etc., then you should have an answer ready.

Hmm, are these books talking about apologetics, or are the authors actually apologeticizing in them?

Always Ready displays some interaction with the arguments of unbelievers, but the rest of them are not, as far as I know, debate-oriented.