Confessor
Puritan Board Senior
I thought this might prove to be useful...
1. When it comes to interpreting the world—i.e., self-consciously making a philosophy of life, a worldview—there are two options. One can submit to Scripture as a perspicuously self-attesting authority, or one can attempt to construct such a philosophy himself, theonomy or autonomy. The history of philosophy has generally followed the autonomous approach, e.g. viewing the Greeks as innocent little children who were looking around the world, just trying to figure things out, rather than as those who deny that God’s attributes are plainly revealed by what is made so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:18 ff.). Allowing that man is fit to interpret the world properly without clinging to Scripture is substantively the same as Rome’s nature-grace dichotomy, applied to apologetics.
2. There is no neutral methodology of constructing a worldview. “The intellectual is itself ethical.” If one assumes that the world is investigate-able without necessarily appealing to God’s authoritative revelation (the Bible), then he is assuming that he is warranted in thinking of facts as not necessarily created by God, which is atheism. He can either submit to God at the outset, or choose not to. There is no neutrality, either Biblical philosophy or manmade philosophy; it is a “forced decision.”
3. Consequently, arguing as if autonomous presuppositions are correct in order to prove theonomous presuppositions, as with classical apologetics, is repudiated. Such a view cannot possibly prove God because it tries to derive from an antitheistic presupposition (that God is not necessarily sovereign over reasoning in any respect) to a thoroughly Christian presupposition (that God is necessarily sovereign over reasoning in every respect). If we are to submit to the Bible on its own authority—and there is no other possible way to go about mining doctrine from it—then we cannot expect to prove it on some other grounds.
4. Presuppositionalism is not fideism. Presuppositional apologists believe that we are rationally permitted in believing in the authority of Scripture as self-evident (as all Christians believe in practice), and that doing so is the only way to have a non-absurd worldview. By arguing from the impossibility of the contrary, presuppositional apologists show that one must presuppose the truthfulness of Christianity in order to have a basis for attempting to critique Christianity in the first place!
5. Presuppositionalism is the only way to avoid fideism. All other approaches require some type of “leap of faith,” for they cannot but establish a probability, even in theory (thus requiring faith to “fill the gap”). Presuppositionalism, on the other hand, insofar as it argues that all non-Christian worldviews destroy the possibility of rationality, argue for the necessity of Christianity.
6. Presuppositionalists believe that, because of contrary presuppositions that permeate to affect one’s entire belief-structure, believers and unbelievers have absolutely no common ground in principle. If unbelievers were consistent with their unbelief, they would be blabbering idiots; but God is kind and restrains them in their rebellion. Therefore, because of God’s restraint, unbelievers are forced to accept specific beliefs about the world, those that they simply cannot distort by virtue of their presuppositions (e.g., belief in the universe as behaving according to rational rules). By these beliefs, which I personally term “immutable facts” for classification purposes, the presuppositional apologist has a “bridge” which he can use to attack and to show the inconsistency of unbelief. Were God not to restrain unbelievers in their rebellion, there would be no common ground at all..
7. Presuppositionalism rules.
1. When it comes to interpreting the world—i.e., self-consciously making a philosophy of life, a worldview—there are two options. One can submit to Scripture as a perspicuously self-attesting authority, or one can attempt to construct such a philosophy himself, theonomy or autonomy. The history of philosophy has generally followed the autonomous approach, e.g. viewing the Greeks as innocent little children who were looking around the world, just trying to figure things out, rather than as those who deny that God’s attributes are plainly revealed by what is made so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:18 ff.). Allowing that man is fit to interpret the world properly without clinging to Scripture is substantively the same as Rome’s nature-grace dichotomy, applied to apologetics.
2. There is no neutral methodology of constructing a worldview. “The intellectual is itself ethical.” If one assumes that the world is investigate-able without necessarily appealing to God’s authoritative revelation (the Bible), then he is assuming that he is warranted in thinking of facts as not necessarily created by God, which is atheism. He can either submit to God at the outset, or choose not to. There is no neutrality, either Biblical philosophy or manmade philosophy; it is a “forced decision.”
3. Consequently, arguing as if autonomous presuppositions are correct in order to prove theonomous presuppositions, as with classical apologetics, is repudiated. Such a view cannot possibly prove God because it tries to derive from an antitheistic presupposition (that God is not necessarily sovereign over reasoning in any respect) to a thoroughly Christian presupposition (that God is necessarily sovereign over reasoning in every respect). If we are to submit to the Bible on its own authority—and there is no other possible way to go about mining doctrine from it—then we cannot expect to prove it on some other grounds.
4. Presuppositionalism is not fideism. Presuppositional apologists believe that we are rationally permitted in believing in the authority of Scripture as self-evident (as all Christians believe in practice), and that doing so is the only way to have a non-absurd worldview. By arguing from the impossibility of the contrary, presuppositional apologists show that one must presuppose the truthfulness of Christianity in order to have a basis for attempting to critique Christianity in the first place!
5. Presuppositionalism is the only way to avoid fideism. All other approaches require some type of “leap of faith,” for they cannot but establish a probability, even in theory (thus requiring faith to “fill the gap”). Presuppositionalism, on the other hand, insofar as it argues that all non-Christian worldviews destroy the possibility of rationality, argue for the necessity of Christianity.
6. Presuppositionalists believe that, because of contrary presuppositions that permeate to affect one’s entire belief-structure, believers and unbelievers have absolutely no common ground in principle. If unbelievers were consistent with their unbelief, they would be blabbering idiots; but God is kind and restrains them in their rebellion. Therefore, because of God’s restraint, unbelievers are forced to accept specific beliefs about the world, those that they simply cannot distort by virtue of their presuppositions (e.g., belief in the universe as behaving according to rational rules). By these beliefs, which I personally term “immutable facts” for classification purposes, the presuppositional apologist has a “bridge” which he can use to attack and to show the inconsistency of unbelief. Were God not to restrain unbelievers in their rebellion, there would be no common ground at all..
7. Presuppositionalism rules.