What Is Presuppositional Apologetics?

Presuppositional Apologetics is an apologetic method. Its arguments deal with the

foundational first-principles of worldviews, arguing that the Christian worldview
is the only worldview with a first-principle (namely, that the Bible is God’s
revelation) that provides justification for the existence of knowledge,
intelligibility, reason, the laws of logic, morality, and other abstract concepts.

All other worldviews fail before they can even begin because they collapse into
absurdity due to self-contradiction. If intelligibility and rationality are not
possible within a worldview, then any assertion made by that worldview is
ultimately meaningless.

In order for someone who believes in an invalid worldview to make a meaningful

assertion, that person must borrow presuppositions from the Christian worldview,
which, after all worldviews have been examined, is the only worldview that can
answer foundational epistemological questions.

Presuppositional Apologetics Arguments

Here is a summary of the arguments that presuppositional apologists make.

The Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence

Answers to Objections Against Presuppositional Apologetics
Circular Reasoning
Full Post: Is Presuppositional Apologetics Circular?

Probably the most common objection to Presuppositional Apologetics is that it

utilizes circular reasoning.
The short response is that every worldview is ultimately circular because every
worldview is derived from fundamental presuppositions, or first principles. Because
these presuppositions are fundamental, one cannot appeal to an authority higher
than them, or else they would not be fundamental.

The fundamental presupposition of the Christian is that objective truth comes from
God’s revelation through the Bible.

The fundamental presupposition of the atheist is that truth is determined by logic,

reason, or experience. The assertion that truth is determined by logic, reason, or
experience is necessarily circular, because one could then only prove that
assertion by using logic, reason, or experience.

Evidence
Full Post: Does Presuppositional Apologetics Ignore Evidence?

Atheists often argue that presuppositional apologists provide no “evidence” for

their claims.

In short, different truth claims require different kinds of evidence. When atheists
say that Christians are not providing evidence for their truth claims, we should
ask, “What is your definition of ”evidence”, and what is your justification for
this definition?”

Just because presuppositional apologists do not present the exact kind of evidence
atheists demand does not mean the evidence they give is invalid.

Neutrality
Full Post: Is Atheism Neutral and Unbiased? No, It’s Not.

One common claim that atheists make is that they start from a position of
neutrality, whereas Christians start with many unjustified, unproven assumptions.
However, this claim is simply untrue.

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The Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence: Introduction (Animated Video)

Is there an irrefutable proof for Christianity?

Yes, and here it is.

Christianity, or, more specifically, the biblical worldview, must be true because
without it, it would be impossible to know anything at all. In other words,
biblical revelation is the necessary foundation for things like the laws of logic,
the uniformity of nature, and morality.

This argument can also be called The Transcendental Argument or Presuppositional

Apologetics. Some well-known theologians and philosophers who have taught this are
Greg Bahnsen, Cornelius Van Til, and Gordon Clark. Today, you can see this method
used by people like James White and Jeff Durbin.

Since this video is just an introduction, check out the links in the description
below to learn more.

In this video, we’re just going to focus on the laws of logic, which are necessary
for any statement to have any meaning. For example, without the Law of
Noncontradiction, a statement such as, “That’s a cat,” could mean, “That’s not a
cat,” or even, “The unicorn is blue.” Any statement could have the exact opposite
meaning, or an arbitrary meaning. Without the laws of logic, the result is the
impossibility of knowledge and meaning.

Let’s contrast the biblical worldview with other worldviews, such as atheism and
other religions.

First, the biblical worldview. The foundational principle of the biblical worldview
is that God has revealed Himself and what is true through the Bible. From the
Bible, we learn that God is a logical being. The laws of logic exist because
they’re a reflection of how God thinks. And from the Bible, we learn that God
created humans with the ability to also think according to the laws of logic.

Next, atheism. The foundational principle of the atheistic worldview is that truth
claims should be evaluated solely by reason, logic, or empiricism—that is, sense
experience. God and the supernatural are not allowed to be the explanation for
anything. Now, here’s the question that atheists simply cannot answer: Where do the
laws of logic come from? All atheistic attempts to answer this question have
ultimately failed. It’s impossible to justify the existence of immaterial,
universal laws of logic in a purely materialistic, naturalistic universe.

Since atheism cannot justify the existence of the laws of logic, the only way
atheism can escape from the impossibility of knowledge is to implicitly assume, or
steal from, the biblical worldview, which can justify the existence of the laws of
logic.

Atheists have lots of objections against all of this, such as:

Atheism is not a worldview,

The biblical worldview is circular,
All people, including both atheists and Christians, need to assume from the very
beginning a set of “self-evident,” or “properly basic” beliefs,
It’s irrational to use a magical concept like God as an explanation.
We’ll look into dealing with these objections in future videos, but for now, we’ll
just say that Christian presuppositionalists have legitimate answers to all of
these objections.

Finally, what about other religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism? For now,
let’s just point out two key principles:

First, a religion without a logical and all-powerful God, such as Buddhism, ends up
with the same problem as atheism—it cannot justify t he existence of the laws of
logic, which means it also results in the impossibility of knowledge.
Second, the problem with other theistic worldviews, such as modern-day Judaism and
Islam, is that non-Christian theistic worldviews all contain internal
inconsistencies that cause these worldviews to collapse and likewise result in the
impossibility of knowledge. In contrast, we argue that the biblical worldview is
internally consistent.
To summarize, the only way to escape from the impossibility of knowledge and
meaning is to assume, whether explicitly or implicitly, a worldview that makes
knowledge and meaning possible. We argue that the only worldview that can do this
is the biblical worldview.

What’s the point of all of this? The point is that the Bible is certainly true,
which means you stand guilty of sin before an infinitely holy and righteous God. If
you repent of your sin and turn to faith in Jesus, you will be forgiven of your sin
and experience eternal joy and life with God, your Father and Creator.

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Presuppositional Apologetics – Non-Christian Religions (Greg Bahnsen)

Why the Christian Worldview?

And that leaves only one option if you’re not going to be a Christian. Is that you
have to have an alternative religious worldview. We say God’s the answer to all
this. God created the physical world out of nothing. It’s God’s mind that’s been
the basis for the laws of logic. It’s God’s character that gives us moral laws by
which we live. So we have the preconditions of intelligibility within the Christian
worldview.

Somebody says, “Yes, well, why the Christian worldview?” What is one of the
questions that you want me to answer is, “Why does it have to be the Christian
worldview? Why not just theism in general?”

There’s No General Theism

Okay, you’ve asked. So, I’m going to tell you. Because there isn’t any such thing
as theism in general. It can’t be theism in general because there ain’t anything
like that. There’s only particular versions of these. Okay? Every version of theism
therefore needs to be treated as its own particular kind of worldview.

How to Answer Theistic Worldviews

And how do you answer the various versions of theism? In the same way that you’ve
answered the materialist and the dualist: by doing an internal critique of that
worldview.

How would that work? Well, to do an internal critique of a different religion,

you’re obviously going to ask at least this question: “Why do you believe what you
believe? On what authority do you do so?”
Arbitrariness
And if there is no answer to that question, then you’re dealing with something that
is—look at number one—you’re ejected because now that’s just arbitrariness.

But you talk to some other religious point of view and you say, “Why do you believe
this?” People say, “I don’t know. I just do.” Well, that’s arbitrary. So that’s no
threat to Christianity. You say, “Oh. So you have arbitrariness or you have
Christian rationality.” Those are the choices.

Well again, in apologetics, that’s all we need to reduce things to. If you wish to
be rational, give a reason for the hope that is in you, you wish to be rational,
you have to be a Christian. In order to be a—whatever it is—out here, you need to
give up rationality and affirm arbitrariness.

Everybody can believe whatever they want. Of course, the arbitrary person has to
allow you the same arbitrariness and everybody else. So there’s no apologetical
argument with that kind of religion. You hear me?

Sure, we want to witness to such a person. Yes, such a person’s made in the image
of God and really can’t successfully, able to live in this world apart from God.
Yes, such a person is under the condemnation of God and has guilt and so forth. But
there’s no apologetical argument with such a person because such a person is purely
arbitrary.

Another Prophet
All right, well then, you’re going to have another kind of answer. An answer that
says, “Well, because we have a great prophet who told us these things.” That’s the
Confucian answer. They don’t call him a prophet. He’s a “wise man.”

You might think, “Okay, now what do I do? I’ve got Jesus. They’ve got Confucius.”
Well, I’ve got Jesus and Jesus provides the preconditions of intelligibility—and it
doesn’t sound real warm and pious, intimate to put it that way, but we’ve talked
about this—Jesus gives me a foundation for wisdom, rather than foolishness.

What does Confucius have going for him? What does Confucius say? “Here’s what the
nobleman is to do. The heavens declare this is what the nobleman is to do.”

Well, I have the right to say, “Well, Confucius, that’s just your opinion.” Back to
number one. That’s rejected too because for everything Confucius said, Buddha said
something. You know? And for everything in the Bhagavad Gita, you can find
something that accounts, that fits in with the Dow. The fact that you have
religious leaders or prophets or wise men are great people, saying things doesn’t
mean there’s a good reason to follow what they’re saying.

The difference between Christianity and Confucianism, Buddhism, and so forth, is

that Christianity’s got an apologetic. We don’t just arbitrarily choose Jesus over
Confucius. We’ve got historical evidence, we’ve got philosophical evidence, we’ve
got all kinds of reasons for believing what Jesus said, not the least of which is,
“Our lives make sense and all the facts of history make sense within the Christian
worldview taught by Jesus.”

That isn’t true for Confucius. In fact, it gets really bad when you come to the
Bhagavad Gita. Here’s the Bhagavad Gita that many people say, “Well, they’ve got
their religious book, you Christians have your religious book.”

Oh, not so fast. I mean, that’s what an amateur would say. If you’ve really done
any reading or any study, it’s a big mistake to put the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita
in the same category. Why?
In the first place, because the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t claim that a personal,
sovereign, all-controlling God has spoken and this is the book that tells us what
He said.

You know why the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t say that? Because it doesn’t believe there’s
a personal, holy, sovereign God who can speak. And so, this book cannot be the
result of God’s revelation in the personal sense that the Bible is.

That doesn’t mean the Bible is automatically right, but don’t think that the
Bhagavad Gita is running in the same race as the Bible. They’re not doing the same
thing at all. Moreover, when you start comparing the Bhagavad Gita as a worldview
and the Bible as a worldview, the Bhagavad Gita destroys the possibility of the
comparison because, you know, if the Bhagavad Gita is correct in what it says,
there is no difference between it and the Bible.

Oh, and by the way, not to overstate the obvious, there’s no difference between you
and the Bhagavad Gita either. There’s no difference between you and the book and
the earth and the sky and the trees and everything. We’re all in this thing
together, and none of the distinctions between sky and tree and stream and book and
human being make any difference.

Indeed, none of the distinctions between logically sound and logically unsound,
morally good and morally bad make any difference either. Oh no, it’s a huge mistake
to think the Bhagavad Gita is running in the same race with the Bible. The Bhagavad
Gita undermines all logic and reasoning, all morality, all human personality, all
human choice.

So, what do we have left? We have the arbitrary religions that say Confucius say,
Buddha say, so forth, and say, yeah everybody has an opinion. That’s just
arbitrary.

You have the books that refute themselves like the Bhagavad Gita. There’s no
rational basis for science or logic, given that worldview.

Non-Christian, Theistic Worldviews

And then you have one other class of religions, the only one really is of interest
in this race for the preconditions of intelligibility. Materialists can’t provide
them. Dualists can’t provide them. The vast majority and vast majority of religions
of the world can’t provide them.

But somebody says, “What about the Muslims?” Because they’ve got a personal God,
they’ve got a revelation, they’ve got a book where it’s recorded. What about the
Mormons? What about people like that?

And although in abstract, in terms of the general format or outline of what I’m
presenting to you, you might think, “Okay, finally, we’ve gotten to a good
competitor,” it turns out at the point where we get a good competitor, we have the
easiest way of dealing with them.

How do you deal with those religions? You deal with them biblically. And the reason
you deal with them biblically is because every one of them is committed to the
Bible. There are no unique competitors with Christianity.

Islam
The only ones that appear to give us a run for our money are all dependent upon our
worldview. Did you know that? The Muslim faith is based on the Quran. The Quran
itself endorses the law of Moses, Psalms, and David, an the gospel of Jesus.

Muhammad said that the Quran is nothing more than the end of the revelatory process
that began way back in what we call the Bible. And so Muslims, if they are true to
the Quran, and they must be, because that’s one of the pillars, after all—Muhammad
is the prophet of God—Muslims must be committed to the previous revelation of the
Bible.

And I’m not saying this is an easy thing. Indeed, psychologically and socially,
culturally, it’s a very hard thing. But logically, in terms of apologetic strategy,
it’s an easy thing to answer how you deal with the Muslim. You deal with the Muslim
biblically.

You go to the Quran and show the Quran endorses the Bible. Then, you go to the
Bible and show that what the Quran says contradicts the Bible, so that on the
Quran’s own terms, you must reject the Quran.

Let me run this past you slowly. I know time is out today, but I’ll try to slowly
do this. The Quran says God revealed himself, Allah revealed himself, in Moses, in
the law. So we go back to the law, which is endorsed by the Quran. In the law,
Moses says any future prophet that comes along must be judged by the previous
revelation that God has given.

So the Quran sends us to Moses. Moses says you must judge the Quran or any other
prophet by previous revelation. Then, you point out that what the Quran reveals or
claims to reveal is in conflict, indeed, in dire conflict with the law of Moses,
the gospel of Jesus, and the Psalms of David.

And so the Quran can be refuted on its own terms. How do they conflict? Well, time
won’t allow me to go into a full comparison at this point, but they conflict, first
of all, in that according to the Quran, God cannot have a son, but according to the
gospel of Jesus, God did have a son and his name is Jesus.

According to the Quran, people can be right with a law, to be right with God by
doing good works. According to the law of Moses, nobody can be right with God, that
we come into this world dirty and filthy and that’s why circumcision was taught to
the Jews. No one enters this world except through an organ that has to be cleansed
in the eyes of God and no one can be right with God without blood sacrifice.
There’s no blood sacrifice in the Koran. There’s no need for blood atonement
because your good works are to compensate for your bad works.

And so, in terms of their view of God and their view of salvation, Muslims stand in
utter contradiction to the teaching of Moses and David and Jesus. And so, once
again, the internal critique of Islam is it rests upon the Bible, it says. And so
you can go to the Bible to refute the Quran.

Mormonism
How about Mormons? You say, “What do you do with Mormons?” Because they’re not like
Muslims, a different religion. They’re some kind of version of Christian, yeah.

But, Mormons will all tell you what that the Bible is their book, and the Book of
Mormon is just like the capstone of the Bible. It’s just another revelation the
Christians have left out.

Well, but if they honor the Bible and the Book of Mormon, then you can argue with
them by comparing the Bible and the Book of Mormon to show the Book of Mormon
conflicts with the Bible. Now, what will Muslims and Mormons and all the rest—well,
there aren’t that many—but in this narrow category of religions that ape
Christianity, what will they do once you point out the Bible conflicts with their
revelation or putative revelation?

The Reliability of the Bible

It never fails. They’ll turn around and say, “Well, then you don’t have the right
Bible.” Right, the Muslims will say the Bible’s been corrupted and that in its
original form it really did agree with the Quran.

Number one (arbitrariness). The only reason Muslims say that the Bible has been
corrupted is because it conflicts with the Koran. They have no evidence of such
corruption, no history of such corruption.

They say, “Oh, you Christians, you tampered with it.” Have you ever known somebody
to accuse another person of his own sin? Takes one to know one? You know why
Muslims think Christians corrupted the Bible? Now, of course there’s no evidence
that they did.

As that as a matter of fact, the version of the Koran that we have today arises
from a recension of the textual evidence in the third caliphate of Uthman. They
called in all the conflicting texts and burned them upon pain of death.

So maybe, since they’ve done that, they think we’ve done the same thing, but there
is no evidence. That surmises only from prejudicial conjunction. There’s no
argument here. It’s just, “You must be wrong because we must be right.”

The Mormons will tell us, “Well, the Bible’s been corrupted and you really need the
interpretation of Joseph Smith.” Yeah, but Joseph Smith’s the only one who saw the
plates and only one given the miraculous ability to translate them. And about this
Joseph Smith, you should keep in mind that he’s been twice convicted—and we know
this—of being a con man in the state of New York. The con man became the prophet of
God who tells us he alone has seen the gold plates and knows how to translate them
and we should all now give up the public evidence of the Bible for this.

That’s asking too much for anybody to be reasonable in that way. Very quickly, at
the end here of our session, what I’m getting at is even those religions that ape
Christianity can be dealt with in terms of an internal critique of what they say.
And so, I think presuppositionalism is not only a strong—indeed the strongest—
argument for Christianity, it can deal with all comers as well.
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Atheism and the Problem of Morality (Jeff Durbin) – Animated Video

Jeff Durbin analyzes three responses to the problem of morality that atheism has.
Generally speaking, atheists suggest that their basis for morality is either 1)
preference, 2) societal convention, or 3) the desire to survive and flourish. Learn
the problems with these proposed solutions to the problem of morality.

Video Transcript
So the atheist has very limited options, and this is actually very exciting. Okay,
the atheist has limited options available.

Atheist Foundations – Bag of Biological Stuff

So, the atheist has his foundations. He believes that he’s come from—and I borrowed
this from Dr. (Sofrate?)—fish to philosopher, from the goo to you. I absolutely
love that he says that so I took that from him. You’re welcome.

So, that’s that’s his view of origins. And so now, they have to create a complex
ethical system as a bag of biological stuff. And so they have very limited options.

1. Preference
So, what they’re limited to is they can ultimately say, “Well, I feel like that’s
wrong.” And so, here’s their ethical system: it’s preference.

So, your preference is you feel like you shouldn’t murder another human being or
you shouldn’t steal from this person. So, your preference is, “I don’t like to do
that.”

But here’s the thing. You’re not in charge of the guy who does like to kill people,
who does like to rape, who does like to steal. You’re not an authority in his life.
Your preference has no power and authority in his life.

So, you can’t create an ethical system off of mere preferences. People have
different preferences. That’s why we have jails. Because there are lots of people
who prefer certain activities and behaviors over others and we know where we put
those people. They prefer it. They want to do it.

2. Societal Convention
Or, the atheist can say, “Well, our ethical system is based upon societal
convention.” So, society determines what is right, what is wrong, what is immoral.
So, they’re limited to society will determine.

Okay, so if we grant the unbeliever the presupposition that society determines what
is moral, then that means that Hitler wasn’t wrong. Germany wasn’t wrong. Because
their society had determined by democratic votes that Hitler was in charge and that
that’s not a person. I know it looks like a person. It’s not a person. It’s a Jew.

And in that case, if you say society determines what is right, what is wrong, and
that’s the basis for ethics, then that means anybody who fought against slavery in
the United States of America was immoral because society had determined it was fine
and okay to capture people as slaves and to enslave them and to use them as human
property.

And that means—watch, this is powerful—if society determines what is moral, then
that means any society that has a person within it fighting for transformation
within society on any level, the person fighting against that society is the
immoral one. Why? Because Society has determined—what?— that we can kill Jews, that
we can enslave black people, and anybody who argues with it is the immoral one.

Do you see if you say society determines what is moral then you are stuck with
society changing morality over time and whatever evil is happening, you cannot war
against it because Society has determined it, which means no social transformation
to any degree really at any time.

3. Surviving and Flourishing

And so, the unbeliever is stuck with that: 1) societal convention, 2) personal
preference, and 3) one more thing. When the unbeliever says, “Well, I have a basis
for ethics: it’s what works to keep us alive.

We’ve determined that if you murder others, then we’re not going to flourish. We’ve
determined if you steal from others, we’re not going to flourish. We determined if
you rape others, we’re not going to flourish.

What’s the hidden assumption there? The borrowed capital from Christianity: human
value and dignity, and that society should flourish. Because we must ask the
unbeliever, we must ask them, “Are we Stardust?”

They say, “Oh yes, yes we’re Stardust.” Like Carl Sagan said, “We are Stardust.”
Right? Neil deGrasse Tyson, he says, “We’re Stardust.”

Well, I’m going to ask you a question. What makes you think Stardust must flourish?
What if I want to kerosene the whole anthill? Who are you to argue with me? You’re
acting like Stardust should flourish and should produce and should do well.

I think there’s actually a lot of human suffering in the world and if we just ended
it all, we would end a lot of human suffering. And there are actually a lot of
people who think just like that. And you have no argument with them, no objective
basis for morality.

All you have is preference, societal convention. That’s all you have, and when the
unbeliever says, “I think society should flourish,” you should say, “Why should
stardust flourish?” and, “Why are you picking this Stardust over this Stardust? Why
are you saying that human beings should be the ones that flourish, who are the
random results of evolutionary processes, and not dogs and snails and horses? Why
aren’t you fighting for them? Why are you fighting for humans? You’re acting like
humans are in the image of God.”

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What Is Presuppositional Apologetics? (Course, P1)

The material out there about presuppositional apologetics can be overwhelming,

confusing, and conflicting, so the purpose of this course is to help explain
presuppositional apologetics in a way that’s a little more accessible, engaging,
understandable, organized, and concise.

There is no overarching plan for this course as of right now. I’ll just make about
what I think might be useful topics when I have time. Who am I? I’m Michael, and
I’m just a regular Christian with a regular job. I attend Grace Family Baptist
Church in Houston, Texas, which Voddie Baucham helped start. I’m married and have
two young children, which explains why I can’t make any promises about the future
of this course.

In this first video, we’re going to do two things:

First, we’ll talk just a little bit about Gordon Clark, Cornelius Van Til, and Greg
Bahnsen, probably the three most well-known people associated with presuppositional
apologetics, and the approach I’m going to take in this course regarding the two
different sides.
And second, we’ll define what presuppositional apologetics is.
Gordon Clark, Cornelius Van Til, and Greg Bahnsen
So first, let’s talk just a little bit about Clark, Van Til, and Bahnsen.

Van Til and Clark had significant disagreements with one another, which manifested
in the Clark-Van Til Controversy. Bahnsen was a student and proponent of Van Til’s
teachings, and some might say Bahnsen was a better proponent of Van Til’s teachings
than Van Til himself.

I would say Van Til and Bahnsen are much more popular today than Clark. Some other
well-known proponents of Van Til’s teachings are James White, Jeff Durbin, and
Scott Oliphant (o-la-fint). One of the most well-known proponents of Clark’s
teachings is the late John Robbins, who founded the Trinity Foundation. Maybe one
reason why Clark isn’t more popular today is that many people, including many
Clarkians, have a negative view of Robbins. Also, Bahnsen has written a long
critique of Clark’s teachings in his book, Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and
Defended.

I have a lot of respect for Van Til and all of these “Van Tillians,” but to be
upfront, I find Clark’s teachings to be more compelling and persuasive, and I’ll
talk more about this in future videos. I do think that there are more similarities
between Van Til and Clark’s teachings than most people think, although there are
certainly some significant differences.

In this course, we’re going to try to focus on presenting apologetic principles in

a way that both sides can probably generally agree upon, and if there are
differences that need to be mentioned, we’ll talk about them.

What Is Presuppositional Apologetics?

Second, what is presuppositional apologetics? Wikipedia actually has a good
definition. It says that “Presuppositionalism is a school of Christian apologetics
that believes the Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It
presupposes the Bible is divine revelation and attempts to expose flaws in other
worldviews.”

Presuppositional apologetics is different from evidential apologetics. Whereas

evidential apologetics starts with evidence and uses evidence to try to prove that
the Bible is true, presuppositional apologetics starts with the position that the
Bible is true and argues that the Bible is the only basis for rational thought.

In other words, the Bible is epistemologically necessary. Epistemology deals with

the question of how knowledge is possible. So, presuppositional apologetics argues
that without biblical revelation as our starting point, knowledge itself would be
impossible. This would mean that all arguments against the Bible fail because they
must first presuppose the Bible to even make sense.

The argument that knowledge is impossible without the Bible is an indirect one, and
it involves doing two things.

One thing we do is demonstrate that the biblical worldview provides us with the
possibility of knowledge, as well as a sufficient worldview that is self-
consistent, or non-contradictory.
Another thing we do is demonstrate that non-biblical worldviews fail because they
do not provide us with the possibility of knowledge, do not provide us with enough
knowledge, and/or are self-contradictory.
So this is a very brief introduction to presuppositional apologetics. In the next
video, we’ll talk about what is probably the most common criticism against
presuppositional apologetics, which is that it uses circular reasoning.
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Presuppositional Apologetics and Circular Reasoning (Course, P2)

In this video, we’re going to answer the objection that presuppositional

apologetics is circular, or that it begs the question.

First, we’re going to explain how every person and worldview has an ultimate
presupposition that is, by definition, circular,
And second, we’re going to talk about how to test the validity of ultimate
presuppositions.
Every Person and Worldview Has an Ultimate Presupposition that Is, by Definition,
Circular
Logically, before argumentation or reasoning can even begin, knowledge must be
possible. So the most foundational question for every person and worldview is, “How
is knowledge possible?” A person’s answer to this question is that person’s
ultimate presupposition.

Here are three examples of how this question might be answered:

First, a Chrisitan presuppositionalist would say that knowledge is possible because

God has revealed Himself through the Bible, and the biblical God is the source all
knowledge.
Second, an atheist might say that knowledge is possible because of sense
experience.
And third, an atheist might say that knowledge is possible because of our ability
to reason.
Now, let’s examine these three examples. For all three of these examples, there can
be an objection of circular reasoning.

The Christian is challenged with the question, “How do you know that the Bible is
the foundation of knowledge?” Well, the Christian can’t answer, “Because knowledge
from somewhere else tells us this,” because then the Bible wouldn’t actually be the
foundation of knowledge. Instead, the Christian must answer, “Because knowledge
from the Bible tells us this.” And this is circular, but that’s the nature of
ultimate presuppositions—since they’re ultimate, you can’t use something else to
prove them. They’re the starting point.

For the second example, we can challenge the atheist with the question, “How do you
know that knowledge comes from sense experience?” Well, again, because this is the
atheist’s ultimate presupposition, the atheist can only answer, “Because sense
experience tells us this.” And this is also circular.

And likewise, for the third example, we can challenge the atheist with the
question, “How do you know that knowledge comes from our ability to reason?” Well,
again, because this is the atheist’s ultimate presupposition, the atheist can only
answer, “Because our ability to reason tells us this.” And this is also circular.

So, if the answer to the question, “How is knowledge possible?”, must be ultimately
circular because it is an ultimate presupposition, then what do we do? We can’t
appeal to anything outside of the answer to prove the answer.

Testing the Validity of Ultimate Presuppositions

The answer is that even though we can’t appeal to anything outside of our ultimate
presupposition to prove our ultimate presupposition, we can still test the validity
of an ultimate presupposition by asking the following questions:

Does this ultimate presupposition successfully make knowledge possible?

Does this ultimate presupposition supply enough knowledge?
Is this ultimate presupposition internally consistent, or does it fail by
contradicting itself?
The presuppositional argument is that the biblical worldview can answer all of
these questions, that non-biblical worldviews can’t answer these questions, and
that therefore, when non-Christians use knowledge, argumentation, and reasoning,
they are implicitly assuming the truth of the biblical worldview, which undermines
their arguments against the Bible from the very beginning.

Conclusion
To conclude, the accusation that presuppositional apologetics is wrong because it
uses circular reasoning isn’t a legitimate accusation because ultimate
presuppositions concerning how knowledge is possible are necessarily circular, in a
sense. The issue isn’t whether an ultimate presupposition is circular or not. The
real issue is whether or not an ultimate presupposition is valid. Does it make
knowledge possible? Does it give us enough knowledge? Is it internally consistent?

In the next video, we’ll talk about empiricism, which is the position that
knowledge comes from sense experience, which is the most common view concerning
where knowledge comes from. To make sure you don’t miss it, click the subscribe
button and the bell icon.
----
The Transcendental Argument, Ultimate Presupposition – Gordon Clark / Cornelius Van
Til Differences
Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til are two of the biggest names in the realm of
presuppositional apologetics. There is a lot of both agreement and disagreement
between the two sides. So far, the videos I’ve made have leaned towards the Van Til
side, both because Greg Bahnsen—who is arguably a better defender of Van Til than
Van Til himself—is a gifted teacher and debater, and because I myself am still
learning the exact differences. Although some people have said that I actually lean
towards the Van Til side, I think that I technically lean more towards the Clark
side.

The purpose of this series is to help clarify the differences between the two
sides. I’ll try to be as fair as possible, although I’m happy to be corrected if I
say anything that’s wrong. As much as possible, I’ll use quotes from people who
know more about Clark and Van Til than I do.

First topic: the Transcendental Argument. I’ve actually already made a video about
the Transcendental Argument, but I’m starting to reconsider my exact view of it.
First, what is it?

This is how Bahnsen summarizes it: “I suggest we can prove the existence of God
from the impossibility of the contrary. The transcendental proof for God’s
existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything.” In other words,
Bahnsen also writes that every person, both believer and critic, must “recognize
the subordination of all thinking to God’s Word because it is our absolute,
transcendental presupposition that makes intelligibility, thinking, evaluating, and
meaning possible.”

How does Clark differ from Van Til regarding this?

Doug Douma writes this:

“Clark argues against all known world views which compete against Christianity, not
all possible world views. The latter is impossible since an infinite number of
world views could be offered, some just minor variations of Christianity. We have
to take the Bible as our axiom.”

So, it seems that the precise difference between Bahnsen and Clark in this area is
pretty subtle, but it might be this:

Bahnsen’s starting point is that Scripture is the necessary foundation for

intelligibility and that this assertion can be demonstrated, whereas Clark’s
starting point is more simply that Scripture is true.
Of course, Clark’s starting point teaches that Scripture is the necessary
foundation for intelligibility. However, since there are an infinite number of
possible and unknown worldviews, it’s logically impossible to demonstrate, as a
“proof,” that no other possible or unknown worldview could theoretically also make
intelligibility possible.
I think Clark would say that if Scripture is true, we should believe and assume
that all non-Scriptural worldviews will fail, and we should demonstrate how all of
the worldviews that are known fail. But, again, we can’t demonstrate the failure of
all possible and unknown worldviews.
I think one Van Tillian response to this is that Scripture, which is our ultimate
presupposition, teaches that there are only two worldviews, Christian and non-
Christian, and that it’s the Triune God that makes intelligibility possible.

The Clarkian response to this might be that this isn’t how Bahnsen uses the
Transcendental Argument. He justifies his contention that non-Christian worldviews
fail to provide a foundation for intelligibility on a case-by-case basis—he
explains why materialism fails, why dualism fails, why non-theistic religions fail,
and why the known theistic religions fail.

In fact, Bahnsen’s argumentation looks very similar to Clark’s reductio ad absurdum

apologetic method. They both step into non-Christian worldview and demonstrate how
they fail by being internally inconsistent.

Again, the difference seems to be that Bahnsen would say that it’s possible to
demonstrate that all non-Christian worldviews—including all possible and unknown
worldview—fail because of what Scripture teaches. Clark, on the other hand, would
probably say that that’s, logically, an impossible endeavor—however, at the same
time, since Scripture is our ultimate presupposition and axiom, we should believe,
assume, and demonstrate that all existing non-Christian worldviews fail.

So again, it seems that Clark’s ultimate presupposition is that Scripture is true,

whereas Bahnsen’s ultimate presupposition is that the truth of Scripture
demonstrates the failure of all non-Christian worldviews. While Clark would
probably agree that Scripture teaches and implies the failure of all non-Christian
worldviews, Clark would probably say that Bahnsen’s ultimate presupposition is not
capable of demonstrating what it claims to be able to demonstrate.

So that’s my best attempt to summarize the difference between Clark and Van Til
concerning the Transcendental Argument. If you think I’ve missed anything, let me
know your thoughts.

--------
Is Presuppositional Apologetics Circular?
One common objection to Presuppositional Apologetics is that it utilizes circular
reasoning. However, the reality is that all worldviews ultimately depend upon
circular reasoning.

Quotes from Critics About Presuppositional Apologetics Being Circular

Below are quotes from people who criticize Presuppositional Apologetics as being
circular

There is to be nothing which smacks of begging the question or circular reasoning…

The use of logic or reason is the ”only” valid way to examine the truth or falsity
of any statement which claims to be factual.

Atheist Gordon Stein

Pretended Neutrality: Does the Critic of Presuppositional Apologetics Use Circular
Reasoning?
The claim from atheists that presuppositional apologists utilize circular reasoning
and atheists do not is simply false. Greg Bahnsen has suggested that we call this
the ”Pretended Neutrality” fallacy.

First Principles
Everyone has fundamental presuppositions, or first principles, upon which the rest
of the worldview is derived from, and these fundamental presuppositions are, by
necessity, circular. They must be circular because since they are “fundamental,” or
“first,” one cannot appeal to anything higher than them, or else they would not be
fundamental.

The fundamental presupposition of the Christian is that God has revealed objective
truth through the Bible.

The atheist says that all facts must be proven by logic, reason, or experience.
This assertion begs the question, “How do you prove the statement that we must
prove facts with logic, reason, or experience?”
If the atheist says that we use logic, reason, or experience to prove that
statement, then he is engaging in the same circular reasoning that he accuses the
Christian of using. If the atheist says that the statement is proven by another
method, then he undermines his assertion that all facts must be proven by logic,
reason, or experience.

Nobody Is Philosophically Neutral

The conclusion of all of this is that nobody is philosophically neutral. Everyone
has fundamental presuppositions, or first principles, that are necessarily
circular, since they are fundamental. This is true for both the atheist and the
Christian.
-----------
Is Atheism Neutral and Unbiased? No, It’s Not.

One common claim is that atheism is neutral and unbiased, whereas Christianity
begins with many unjustified, unproven assumptions. However, this claim is false
because there is no such thing as philosophic neutrality.

Quotes About Atheism Being Neutral

So, let me make my somewhat seditious proposal explicit: We should not call
ourselves “atheists.” We should not call ourselves “secularists.” We should not
call ourselves “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or
“skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.”
We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of
our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad
ideas wherever we find them.

Sam Harris
Atheism Is Not Neutral
Harris says, “We should not call ourselves anything” and “We should go under the
radar,” but what he says immediately afterwards completely undermines these
statements.
He says, “we should ”’be decent, responsible people”’ who ”’destroy bad ideas”’
wherever we find them. Two questions we must ask in response to this are:

1--What does it mean to be a “decent,” “responsible” person? From where does he get
the standard for what is “decent” or “responsible”? He does not have a right to
merely assume these concepts without justification. However, in order to define
these concepts, he must “call himself something,” and can no longer “go under the
radar.”

2--By what standard does he “destroy bad ideas”? His standard is likely something
like logic, science, or experience, but does he have any justification or reason
for the existence of rationality and intelligibility, or does he simply assume
them? Unless he accepts that his arguments have no philosophical foundation, he
needs to provide some kind of worldview or foundation that justifies his use of
logic, science, experience, or rationality, at which point he can no longer “not
call ourselves anything” or “go under the radar.”

-------

Response to RationalWiki’s Article on the Transcendental Argument for God

This is a response to RationalWiki’s article on the Transcendental Argument for

God. The text of RationalWiki’s article is in blue.

The transcendental argument for the existence of God (TAG) is an argument within
the realm of presuppositional apologetics. It argues that logic, morals, and
science ultimately presuppose a theistic worldview, as God must be the “source” of
logic and morality. In other words, because Goddidit is claimed to be the answer to
every question in epistemology, God necessarily exists.

In other (non-derogatory) words, biblical revelation, after examining all other

philosophical options, is the only worldview that can answer certain foundational
questions related to epistemology. Therefore, the existence of the biblical God is
philosophically necessary to escape the problem of absurdity.

This argument was first proposed by Immanuel Kant in 1763, in his work The Only
Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God. It has
been widely discredited ever since the scientific enlightenment, so naturally it
remains hugely popular with Christian theologians and philosophers.

As we will see below, the defense of biblical revelation being necessary to escape
the problem of absurdity has not been discredited and is an entirely valid
argument.

Format
The basic idea of TAG is that certain things that atheists assume are true can only
be true if there is a God. These include the assumption that logical reasoning is
possible, that scientific inference is justified, and that (absolute) moral
standards exist. As such, when an atheist refutes the theistic argument using
logic, undermines the position of the Bible on certain topic(s) using scientific
evidences or argues that the existence of evil is incompatible with the concept of
an omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect God, the TAG maintains that the
atheist is assuming God’s existence in constructing these arguments.

A better way to phrase this would be, “when an atheist <strong>attempts</strong> to

refute…” We do have answers to every objection raised against the Bible.
Presuppositional apologetics simply argues that the objections raised by atheists
depend upon foundational concepts that atheists have no justification for.

It claims that because logic and science (knowledge) cannot exist without God, and
that in order to define “evil” it requires an objective standard that is also
impossible without God.

Modern appearances
In its modern form, TAG is predominantly used by Christians more specifically than
the format listed above. Christian apologists attempt to “prove” that logic,
science and objective morality presupposes the Judeo-Christian worldview (while
somehow excludes Islam, which is developed upon the same set(s) of worldview).

Even more specifically, we argue that logic, science, and objective morality
presuppose the biblical worldview.

Islam is excluded because it contains self-contradictions, which reduces it to

absurdity. So, the arguments against atheism and Islam are extremely similar: both
worldviews fail to produce a foundation for the possibility of intelligibility.

Problems with TAG

Problems shared with other apologetic arguments
One of the most common problem Christian apologetics has is that the generalized
formulation (i.e. the argument minus the holy book) does not specifically argue for
any particular god(s). Usually this uniqueness issue is addressed through the use
of the Bible, reducing the argument into “my book is holier than yours”, or the
circular arguments similar to other arguments for the existence of the Christian
God.
Another (non-derogatory) way to say, “my book is holier than yours,” is, “Biblical
revelation is the only logically consistent and sufficient foundation for the
possibility of knowledge. All other philosophical systems fail at some point.”

Regarding circular arguments, all first-principles of any philosophical system, or

worldview, must ultimately be circular, or else they would not be first-principles.
For example, saying that knowledge is determined by reason is circular because one
must use reason to determine that knowledge is determined by reason, and saying
that knowledge is determined by sense experience is circular because one then must
use sense experience to determine that knowledge is determined by sense experience.

To argue that you do not have a worldview or a first-principle is disingenuous

because you actually do. You have a standard by which you are evaluating
statements, and whatever that standard is (reason, science, sense experience,
etc.), that is your first-principle, or the foundation of your worldview, and it is
necessarily circular in the sense that you cannot appeal to anything higher than
that first-principle.

Problems specific to TAG

The problem of morality
TAG argues that (objective) morality cannot exist without God. This raises the
question: Since the apologist argues that there are differences between right and
wrong, Are the differences solely based on God?

Let’s be more specific here, since the question above is kind of vague and
confusing. The differences between right and wrong are based upon what God has
revealed about right and wrong, namely, that God is the definition of what is
right, and that disobedience to his commands is wrong.

If it is not, then said morality already exists without God.

If it is, then the following problem arises:
From God’s perspective there is no difference between right and wrong (if there is,
that part of morality exists without God), and it is no longer a meaningful
statement to say that God is good or morally perfect.
It is certainly a meaningful statement to say that God is good or morally perfect
because God’s goodness is in contrast to created beings that are not good or
morally perfect because they disobey God’s moral commands.

From God’s perspective, there <strong>is</strong> a difference between right and

wrong. Just because God cannot do anything wrong does not mean he does not
distinguish between right and wrong. He considers it wrong for people to disobey
his commands.

Without any further explanation, the argument above is confusing and insufficient.

God has problems communicating the differences between right and wrong to anyone in
an authentic manner.
Why? We need more explanation here. God has communicated the difference between
right and wrong by revealing the difference through the Bible (or, through
revelation that would ultimately become the Bible).

What is the problem here, and why is it not “authentic”?

Another question is: Does morality even exist?

Yes. What I have written above should be sufficient to answer this question.

The problem of knowledge

TAG argues that without God knowledge is impossible, which the explanation is the
following:

“How do you know <statement> is true?” can be applied to the explanation of

something ad infinitum, so an infinite regress is created.
God is used as the terminator of the infinite regress: the ability of God to
terminate the infinite regress comes from His omnipotence.
Therefore, God exists.
The problem with such argument is as follows:

There are statements that are self-evident enough that infinite regress does not
come up. Those are called Axioms. Knowledge that can be built from deductive
reasoning are built based on them.
An example may be the concept of cogito ergo sum by René Descartes.
The concept of cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”) by René Descartes simply
does not escape the problem.

The statement, “I think, therefore…” or “there is thinking going on, therefore…”

assumes the apriori existence of rationality and logic, which have yet to be
explained or justified. Furthermore, the very act of thinking assumes that there is
existence, so the statement begs the question.

The proposition that God is sufficiently self-evident to be an axiom suffers from

the uniqueness problem: If you need scripture to show that the self-evident God is
your version of God, then it is not self-evident.
We’re saying that biblical revelation is “self-evident,” or, the only worldview
where infinite regress does not come up.

If the point has been shifted to suggest that it’s the Bible that is self-evident…
Since the apologist already argued that God has to be presupposed, either it is
bibliolatry (because the Bible is equated to God) or it is circular reasoning
because each of them implies the other and both of them have to be presupposed.
No, the presuppositional apologist argued that biblical revelation has to be
presupposed, which is a revelation of the mind of God. This is not bibliolatry
because the Bible is equated to God in that the Bible is a revelation of the mind
of God, and God’s mind is not distinct from God.

If the termination comes from the omniscience of God, the problem is that God has
problems communicating the knowledge to anyone in an authentic manner. If the
revealed knowledge will go through validations afterwards, then:
There is no reason to believe god is required to be involved.
Isn’t this challenging/questioning/judging what God is telling you, and thus being
the wrong thing to do most of the time?
I don’t think the argument above is relevant to what I have written already. The
termination comes from biblical revelation, and not anything more generic than
that.

=== Transcendental Argument for the Non-existence of God (TANG) ===

Michael Martin, the late atheist professor of philosophy, has argued that the exact
same argument can be used to argue for the non-existence of God. The argument goes
as follows:

==== Logic ====

Logic presupposes that its principles are necessarily true. With TAG’s argument,
God created everything, including logic; or at least everything, including logic,
is dependent on God.

We do not say that God “created” logic, or that logic is “dependent” on God.
Rather, we say that God essentially is logic, or, that logic is patterned after the
mind of God.

However, if logic is created by or contingent on God, it is not necessary–it is

contingent on God. And if principles of logic are contingent on God, they are not
logically necessary, and God can change them on God’s fiat. Thus God can change the
laws of identity to make them invalid at some point, making statements not the same
as themselves.

God cannot change the laws of logic.

Since logic is contingent on God as one of His creations, to argue that God cannot
change the laws of logic blows away God’s omnipotence.

No, it does not, because the definition of God’s omnipotence does not include the
ability to do the logically impossible. That God is omnipotent means that he can do
anything that is in accordance with his nature.

As a result, the claim that logic is dependent on God is false.

That wasn’t our claim, and this argument completely fails.

==== Science ====

Science presupposes Uniformitarianism. That is, that natural law has always
operated as it operates at present and there has been no violations of such laws.

This definition of science is arbitrary, and it is actually not a good definition

of science. Here are two possible definitions of science from Merriam-Webster:

knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of

general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method
such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and
its phenomena
Neither of these definitions include the concepts that “natural law has always
operated as it operates” or “there has been no violations of such laws.” This
argument simply hijacks the definition of science for a biased purpose.

Christians can easily hold to Merriam-Webster’s definitions of science, while

allowing for the possibility that God may, at times, perform actions that are
contrary to normal physical laws.

However, Christianity also presupposes a version of God that gives miracles, which
is by definition a direct violation of these laws.Therefore science presupposes the
non-existence of any miracle-granting gods (God(s) that don’t ever give miracles
fall(s) into the category of Non-Overlapping Magisteria and are thus more
compatible).

No, that arbitrary definition of science presupposes the non-existence of any

miracle-granting gods. The dictionary’s definition of science does not presuppose
the non-existence of any miracle-granting gods.

If the argument is shifted that Uniformitarianism is false, then the entire

scientific method (the prediction/experiment design/reproduce part) and
subsequently science are to be discarded and it is no longer meaningful to say
science presupposes god.

Not at all. To say that at times, God performs actions that are contrary to natural
laws does not at all undermine the possibility of the scientific method and
science. We are not saying that there are no physical laws, or that physical laws
are arbitrary, which would undermine science.
In any case, this alternative is rather strongly undermined by the huge array of
information science has allowed us to amass via uniformitarian assumptions.

Uniformitarian assumptions were not necessary for the things we have learned
through science. The assertion that science requires uniformitarian assumptions is
simply false.

Morality
If morality presupposes God, then the morality in question would be categorized as
a variation of the divine command theory, in that moral obligations are dependent
on the will of God. However, that runs in to the following problems:

Which god(s): to argue that the scripture(s) of one particular religion is correct
reduces the case to being, “My book is better than your book”. To make the
situation worse, all the scriptures give a somewhat different (albeit, broadly
similar) list of moral obligations to follow, and the interpretation of the
passages from the same scriptures can be different, as well. Since there is no
rational way to reconcile the differences, without resorting to the argument of
which book is correct, morality in this sense is not exactly objective.
We need to examine each book to see which one is self-consistent and correct. The
phrase, “without resorting to the argument of which book is correct,” is confusing
because that is the exact argument we need to use to solve this supposed problem.

Since God allegedly created such morality, can God change it?
We would not say that God <strong>created</strong> morality. Rather, we would say
that God is, or is himself the standard, of morality. Because of this, objective
morality is unchangeable, since God himself is unchangeable. Everything that God
commands is, by definition, in accordance with who he is. He cannot command
anything that is contradictory to his nature.

Also, the things that God has commanded in the Bible will not change.

If God can change it on his fiat, then morality is not objective.

See what was written above. Morality is objective because God’s nature never
changes, and God’s commands in the Bible will not change.

Such morality would never be objective anyway, because it wouldn’t apply to God.
For a morality to be objective, it would have to be uniformly applicable to all
possible actors, at all possible times, in all possible contexts, which means it
shouldn’t even be possible, if objective morality exists, to imagine a species for
which (for example) killing would be less wrong.
Morality applies to God in that God himself is the standard of morality. In other
words, whatever God is, and whatever God commands, is by definition right. God has
given humans commands to obey, but these commands do not apply to God. It is not
wrong for God to kill because he is the creator and has authority over all life,
whereas this is not the case for humans. God cannot steal because everything
belongs to him, whereas this is not the case for humans.

If God cannot change what he had created, then God cannot be omnipotent.

Again, that God is omnipotent means that he can do anything that is in accordance
with his nature. God cannot change the standard of morality because the standard of
morality is his very nature.

As a result, the morality that presupposes God cannot be objective, and objective
morality does not presuppose God.
We have demonstrated that this conclusion is invalid.

How to refute a few basic TAG traps

A TAG apologist might make the following statement:

“If Yahweh exists, He is therefore the arbiter of ultimate moral authority, by

which we compare and contrast our own standard of ethics. Therefore, those who
assert that God does not exist, cannot account for morality without being viciously
circular; since to account for morality as an emergent property of our evolutionary
heritage is to claim that our senses, reasoning and memory are valid according to
their own standards of proof. How, then, can the atheist say that his or her
subjective experiences are objectively valid if there is no absolute standard of
morality against which to judge them? Therefore, even those who deny the existence
of God, by virtue of the fact that they are nevertheless morally sound, demonstrate
His basic existence.”

The problem with this statement is multifaceted. Firstly, even if you could prove
the basic existence of a specific god, it wouldn’t necessarily follow that
he/she/it is therefore the arbiter of absolute moral authority.

We are not saying that objective morality is dependent upon proving the existence
of God. We are saying that the existence of God (more specifically, the biblical
God) is necessary for objective morality to exist.

Indeed, if the specific god which was proven to exist was indeed the god of the
bible, Yahweh, any claim that He is therefore the arbiter of absolute morality
would, by definition, mean that the biblical account of His various commandments to
rape, murder and destroy those who do not believe in Him, is either a false account
of His actual commandments or a perfectly accurate account of a deity which holds
to a different standard of morality than any right-thinking human being.

You use the term, “any right-thinking human being.” How do you define what is
“right,” and by what moral standard do you get this definition from? Is this moral
standard objective? If so, where does this objective moral standard come from? If
not, then why should anyone care about this subjective moral standard?
In the biblical worldview, there is no logical problem with God punishing sinners.
You may consider it wrong for God to punish sinners in particular ways, the within
the biblical worldview, which is the worldview Christians are arguing from, sinners
deserve eternal torment for their sin. If you argue that it is wrong for God to
punish sinners in particular ways, then you must provide the moral standard that
you are judging God with, which we would argue you cannot do.
Secondly, it is not true to say that an atheistic worldview cannot account for an
absolute standard of morality.

This assertion is never justified in what follows. The argument being made is that
an atheistic worldview <strong>does not require</strong> an absolute standard of
morality.

Indeed, the only reason such a black and white absolutist position on morality is
invoked to begin with, is because it serves the purpose of theological thinking,
not because it is a logically valid prerequisite.

Well, without this “black and white absolutist position on morality,” there is no
ultimate reason for why rape or child sacrifice is wrong. As an atheist, would you
argue that rape and child sacrifice are <strong>always</strong> wrong?

If so, then this requires an absolute standard of morality, or else there cannot be
a legitimate argument against a civilization that decided rape and child sacrifice
are good.
If not, then you would at least be logically consistent with his worldview.
However, you would certainly not live as if there was no absolute right and wrong,
so you would essentially be borrowing the biblical standard of morality in the way
you live your life. For example, if someone stole from you, you would almost
certainly not say, “Well, that person thinks stealing is okay, so who am I to say
he shouldn’t steal from me?” You would consider it wrong for that person to have
stolen from you.

In reality, human ethics and morality are more nuanced. What is moral at one end of
the scale and immoral at the other, does not mean that shades of grey cannot and do
not exist in-between. Popular science author and neuroscientist Sam Harris has
called this the moral landscape; peaks and troughs of behavior which are balanced
between the needs and beliefs of the individual and the needs and beliefs of his or
her fellow human beings; “Do not do to someone else, what you would not have them
do to you” – Confucius, 500 BCE. In other words, morality isn’t necessarily an
objective and absolute code that is part of the universe’s components, it could
very well be a subjective concept / thought system based on humans’ experience,
reason, empathy etc. which continuously change, and vary for different
civilizations.

If morality is subjective, then would you say the Holocaust was objectively wrong?
If so, why? Germany was a civilization that decided the Holocaust was right. Who
are you to say the German civilization was wrong?

If not, then, again, you would at least be logically consistent with his worldview.
However, you would certainly not live as if there was no absolute right and wrong,
so you would essentially be borrowing the biblical standard of morality in the way
you live your life. For example, if someone stole from you, you would almost
certainly not say, “Well, that person thinks stealing is okay, so who am I to say
he shouldn’t steal from me?” You would consider it wrong for that person to have
stolen from you.

Christian apologists, nevertheless, propagate and capitalize upon the notion that
human morality is either absolutely sound or absolutely corrupt, precisely because
it circumvents their own qualifying statement “if God exists” in the basic
proposition of the TAG — to make the tonality of their overall proposal seem evenly
balanced.

This is not accurate. What we are saying is that there is either an objective,
universal standard for morality or there is not. If there is not, then there is no
ultimate reason or justification to say that anything is “wrong.”

The basic proposition of TAG does not utilize the statement, “if God exists.” The
basic proposition, in relation to ethics, is that the God of the Bible must exist
in order for anything to be objectively right or wrong.

But the use of the word “if” is extremely disingenuous. It makes the statement
appear to be either true or false; that there are two equally likely possibilities
as to the nature, character and basic existence of an absolute arbiter of morality
on the table. But in proposing that X and Y can only stem from Z, it rules out the
possibility that X and Y could also be an emergent property of A. Further, it
characterizes A as being incapable of accounting for X and Y, because in actuality
X and Y are only required in order to find in favor of the proposal that a god
exists, not in order that its existence be disproved.

This is pretty convoluted. Let’s try to break this down.

“A” seems to refer to arguments for the existence of subjective standards of right
and wrong that may not be objective, but are relevant and useful for humanity and
civilizations.
If so, then our response is that our argument is that any subjective standard of
morality that is based upon “humans’ experiences, reason, empathy, etc.” reduces to
absurdity because it does not have any real response to the possibility that
another group or civilization may have “experiences, reason, empathy, etc.” that
results in the exact opposite subjective standard of morality. In other words, you
do not have a good reason for saying the Holocaust was wrong. You may convince
yourself that you do, but ultimately, you do not.
Playing the faith card
Consider by analogy, the following conversation:

Person A: “Can you imagine, in your mind’s eye, someone flying around this room
without any obvious source of power?”

Person B: “Yes. I have a vivid imagination and have seen many superhero movies.”

Person A: “I can fly around this room, simply by flapping my arms and legs.”

Person B: “This I’ve got to see! Prove it!”

Person A: “First you must accept that, if I could fly, the laws of gravity would be
therefore invalidated.”

Person B: “I can see how you might think that, but how do I know you’re not wearing
a hidden wire?”

Person A: “You have to trust me; you have to accept that I am not cheating.”

Person B: “OK, for arguments sake, I’ll trust you. Now, leap into the air, as
promised.”

Person A: “As I have already explained, if I could fly, the laws of gravity would
be invalidated. You, yourself, have already admitted that you can easily visualize
what I would look like, were I to fly around the room unaided. Therefore, I can
fly.”

Person B: “Seek medical advice.”

Person A: “You lack faith, even though (sic) the proof is now right in front of
you. You’re just close-minded, and I feel sorry for you.”

There are many similar semantic word traps and circular reasoning built into TAG
apologetics, of which the debating skeptic / positive agnostic / atheist,
unfamiliar with the TAG modus operandi can easily fall foul.

Since this is not a real conversation, there is no need to respond to it. I’ll
respond to arguments that are more clearly relevant to the discussion.

But, however the basic arguments of TAG apologetics are phrased, and however
insistent the interlocutor is that it is actually the skeptic who needs to “open
their mind”, it is an inescapable fact that the TAG fails to pass the first basic
test as to whether or not it constitutes a logically valid proposal, since it
assumes the basic existence of that which its own claims are predicated upon, but
which cannot be objectively demonstrated.

Again, you fail to understand the nature of first-principles. You use the phrase,
“objectively demonstrated.” This begs the question, “Objectively demonstrated by
what? In other words, what is <strong>your</strong> objective standard for
determining whether something is true or not?” You yourself are assuming the basic
existence of an “objective standard,” and your own claims that TAG is invalid are
predicated upon the existence of whatever “objective standard” you are referring
to.
------------------
The Best Evidence for Christianity

The best evidence for Christianity deals with epistemology, or the theory of
knowledge. During his debate with atheist Gordon Stein, theologian and philosopher
Greg Bahnsen said this concerning proving that the Christian God exists:

I suggest that we can prove the existence of God from the impossibility the
contrary. The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without him it is
impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot
consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic,
or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity
of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes.

Greg Bahnsen, The Great Debate: Does God Exist?

In this debate, Bahnsen provides an excellent explanation and defense of the

Transcendental Proof, or Argument, for the Christian God’s existence. You can view
the full debate below.

In this article, we’re going to summarize and expand upon Bahnsen’s arguments.

Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics

In his debate, Bahnsen used the Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence.
Another name for Bahnsen’s apologetic method is Presuppositional Apologetics, which
argues that 1) presuppositions are necessary to make sense of human experience, and
2) there are no neutral presuppositions that everyone shares.

What Are Presuppositions?

A presupposition is essentially the foundational, or first, principle upon which a
worldview is built. The presupposition, or foundational principle, of a worldview,
is necessarily self-justifying, or, in a particular sense, “circular”; in other
words, no higher standard can be appeals to—otherwise, it would not be the
foundational principle.

The Christian presupposition, or foundational principle, is that God has revealed

Himself and what is true through what is now known as the Bible.

Who Has Presuppositions?

All people have presuppositions, including atheists. Many atheists like to say that
they are not presupposing, or “claiming,” anything—they are merely evaluating other
claims using reason, logic, or empiricism (sense-experience).

Why Atheism Is Not Neutral, or “Claimless”

The atheist presupposition, or foundational principle, is essentially that truth
claims should be evaluated using reason, logic, or empiricism. Atheists argue that
this is a neutral, or “claimless” position, but this is simply not true. We can
demonstrate that this is not true with the following questions.

On what basis do you say that truth claims should be evaluated using reason, logic,
or empiricism?
Atheists might answer by saying that the claim that truth claims should be
evaluated using reason, logic, or empiricism is merely self-evident, or something
that we must assume.
However, this answer begs the question—it assumes that we must evaluate truth
claims by using reason, logic, or empiricism to establish the claim that we must
evaluate truth claims by using reason, logic, or empiricism.

How do you justify the existence of the laws of logic?

Atheists necessarily must evaluate truth claims using reason or logic, which
presupposes the existence of the laws of logic. However, since atheists do not
allow God or the supernatural to be explanations, since atheists assume that the
universe is materialistic in nature, they cannot justify the existence of the laws
of logic, which are immaterial, or abstract, and universal.

How do you justify belief in the uniformity of nature?

Atheists presuppose the uniformity of nature, or, that the future will behave like
the past. However, the atheistic view of the universe results in the impossibility
of being able to justify belief in the uniformity of nature.

How do you justify belief in objective morality?

Although consistent atheists might say that they don’t believe in objective
morality, no atheist lives this way. For example, all atheists will object to
another person stealing from them.

Many atheists will argue that morality is subjective, or the result of social
convention. However this means they do not have a basis for arguing that the
Holocaust was wrong, that slavery was wrong, that rape is wrong, or that torturing
children is wrong. However, if they attempt to argue that these things are wrong
for all people at all times in all places, they demonstrate that they actually do
believe in an objective, universal moral standard.

Problems With Atheism

We have established above that atheism is not neutral, or “claimless.” Atheism
presupposes foundational concepts such as the laws of logic, the uniformity of
nature, and (objective) morality.

The Presuppositional Apologetics Argument

Presuppositional apologetics argues that atheism cannot justify the existence of
the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, and objective morality, which means
that atheism cannot provide the preconditions for intelligibility. In other words,
since atheism does not assume the existence of God—specifically, the Christian,
biblical God—atheists cannot justify the existence of knowledge itself.

If atheism cannot justify the existence of knowledge, then rationally speaking, it

can’t even begin to produce statements that are intelligible or meaningful.

Of course, atheists use knowledge. What we’re saying is that atheists can only use
knowledge because they are implicitly assuming a worldview that can provide the
preconditions for intelligibility (that is, justification for the existence of the
laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, and moral absolutes).

Atheism, by itself, would result in philosophical skepticism, or meaninglessness.

Do Atheists Need to Justify the Existence of the Laws of Nature or the Uniformity
of Nature?
Properly Basic Beliefs? (For Example, Ozymandias’s Argument)
Some atheists, for example, the YouTuber known as Ozymandias Ramses II, argues that
atheists should not be trying to demonstrate the validity of reason, logic, or
empiricism at all. He says that there are many “properly basic beliefs” that
everyone simply must assume, without justification.

Ozymandias says this to attempt to avoid the charge of “circular reasoning,” or the
need to defend a self-justifying foundational principle.

The Problem of Arbitrariness

The problem with what Ozymandias says is arbitrariness. Bahnsen says this:

One of the two great intellectual sins that men commit no matter what field of
study you’re in is arbitrariness. The other one is inconsistency.

1. No one is allowed to be arbitrary if you’re trying to present a rational basis

for what you believe.

2. And no one is being rational in presenting a basis for what they believe if they
contradict themselves—if they’re inconsistent.

When Ozymandias says that everyone simply must assume many “properly basic
beliefs”—such as the laws of logic and the uniformity of nature—he is essentially
saying that the starting point for his worldview is arbitrary, that is, he has
absolutely no reason for it. That’s not rational.

Is Saying that God Is the Foundation for “Properly Basic Beliefs” Arbitrary?
Atheists argue that it’s arbitrary and irrational to say that God is the foundation
for “properly basic beliefs” like the laws of logic and the uniformity of nature.
They say that since there is no evidence for God, we cannot use God as the
explanation for these “properly basic beliefs.”

However, what these atheists are missing is that the Christian God is not an
arbitrary God or an arbitrary explanation. The Christian God, and the Christian
worldview, is filled with content that directly relates to human history and human
experience.

So, when presuppositionalists say that God explains the existence of the laws of
logic and the uniformity of nature, they are not making up a God that conveniently
answers these foundational philosophical questions. Rather, they are describing a
very specific God who has revealed very specific things about Himself, who has
communicated directly with humans, and who has consistently acted within human
history.

Ozymandias uses the example of Superman. He says it is irrational to say that

Superman explains the existence of something like the Grand Canyon. He says
Superman is a pseudo-explanation, a placeholder for a natural explanation. However,
there are at least two major problems with his example:

Superman is an arbitrary explanation because he is a fictional character, whose

entire identity is fabricated by humans. In contrast, the Christian worldview is
founded on the principle that the God of the Bible is not an arbitrary character,
nor invented by humans—rather He is someone who has revealed many specific things
and done many specific things in history, things that can be evaluated and tested.
Second, Ozymandias assumes and asserts, unjustifiably, that the highest goal is “a
natural explanation.” This assertion is arbitrary, and he has already just admitted
that there is simply no natural explanation for the “properly basic beliefs” he has
listed. His demand for a purely natural explanation for these “properly basic
beliefs” is arbitrary, irrational, and impossible.
Do Christians Have the Same Problem of Not Being Able to Justify “Properly Basic
Beliefs”?
Ozymandias asserts that Christians have the exact same problem of not being able to
justify the “properly basic beliefs” that he mentions. His argument is that the
Christian presupposition presupposes, also without justification, these “properly
basic beliefs.”
Now I’d like to switch gears and consider how the two main presuppositions of
presuppositional apologetics are themselves dependent on other presuppositions: the
properly basic beliefs I named earlier…

Now you presuppositionalists couldn’t infer anything from the existence of your
hypothetical God or even learn about such a God or even conceive of such a God
without tacitly employing the universally held properly basic beliefs I’ve been
talking about.

Ozymandias Ramses II, Presuppositionalism & Properly Basic Beliefs

The statement above demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of presuppositional
apologetics.

Ozymandias is saying that Christians depend upon these “properly basic beliefs” to
produce any content related to the Christian worldview.
However, the entire point of presuppositional apologetics is that these “properly
basic beliefs” are insufficient as a rational starting place for a worldview
because they are unjustified and therefore arbitrary.
The fundamental question is not how we determine what is true, but rather, what
makes rationality and determining truth even possible in the first place?
The Christian worldview provides a non-arbitrary starting place—the biblical God—
that allows for the very possibility and beginning of rationality.
On Preferring Uncertainty Over Dogma
At the end of his video, Ozymandias says this:

Well, some of us would rather not pretend to have a completely consistent

worldview. We’d rather have an incomplete, inconsistent, uncertain belief set made
up of provisionally held beliefs, which are properly motivated and honestly
recognize our epistemological limits because unlike some people, we aren’t
intellectually satisfied with pseudo-explanations and vacuous accounts. Your
presuppositions aren’t presuppositions. They’re your dogmas.

Ibid.
This is a popular position and objection to Christianity and presuppositional
apologetics. Essentially, Ozymandias is saying that he’s rational and
presuppositionalists are not, that he doesn’t hold to dogmas and
presuppositionalists do hold to dogmas. However, again, he’s wrong.

Ozymandias holds to the dogma of naturalism—everything must be explained naturally,

without appealing to God or the supernatural. We would also say that Ozymandias is
irrational in holding the position that it is rational to begin with the assumption
of unjustifiable “properly basic beliefs” and rejecting the Christian worldview as
providing rational justification for these “properly basic beliefs.”

To conclude, people like Ozymandias think they are rational and think they do not
hold to dogmas, and they accuse Christian presuppositionalists of being irrational
and holding to dogmas. What they don’t realize is that by refusing to accept the
validity and rationality of the Christian worldview, they demonstrate that they are
holding to their own dogma, the dogma of naturalism.

The two differences between the atheist’s dogma—or presupposition, or foundational

principle—and the Christian presuppositionalist’s dogma are:

Atheists don’t recognize and don’t admit that they have this dogma, and
The Christian presuppositionalist’s dogma makes rationality possible, whereas the
atheist’s dogma does not.
The Laws of Logic
The laws of logic are immaterial, or abstract, and universal. They are immaterial
in the sense that we can’t see or touch them, and they are universal in that they
are the same for all people at all times.

One major problem with atheism is that it assumes that the universe is material in
nature. In other words, the universe consists merely of matter, or matter in
motion.

The question that atheists can’t answer is this: How can something that is
immaterial and universal, such as the laws of logic, exist in a purely
materialistic universe?

Are the Laws of Logic Self-Justifying?

Some atheists might argue that the laws of logic are self-justifying, or that they
exist apart from experience. Here is Bahnsen’s response:

But if you don’t take that approach and want to justify the laws of logic in some a
priori fashion, that is apart from experience—sometimes that suggests that these
things are self verifying—then we can ask why the laws of logic are universal,
unchanging, and invariant truths. Why they, in fact, apply repeatedly in the realm
of contingent experience.

Dr. Stein told you, “Well, we use the laws of logic because we can make accurate
predictions using them.” Well, as a matter of fact, that doesn’t come anywhere
close to discussing the vast majority of the laws of logic. That isn’t the way they
are proven. It’s very difficult to conduct experiments on the laws of logic of that
sort. They are more conceptual in nature rather than empirical or predicting
certain outcomes in empirical experience.

But even if you want to try to justify all of it in that way we have to ask why is
it that they apply repeatedly in a contingent realm of experience? Why in a world
that is random, not subject to personal order as I believe it is because of the
Christian God, why is it that the laws of logic continue to have that success
generating feature about them? Why should they be assumed to have anything to do
with the realm of history? Why should reasoning about history or science or
empirical experience have these laws of thought imposed upon it?

Are the Laws of Logic Conventional?

Some atheists argue that the laws of logic are conventional—that is, they are
agreed upon by humans. Here is Bahnsen’s response:

Once again we have to come back to this really unacceptable idea that they’re
conventional. If they are conventional than of course there ought to be just
numerous approaches to scholarship everywhere, different approaches to history, to
science, and so forth, because people just adopt different laws of logic. That just
isn’t the way scholarship proceeds and if anybody thinks that is adequate they just
need to go to the library and read a bit more. The laws of logic are not treated as
conventions. To say that they are merely conventions is simply to say I haven’t got
an answer.

Induction and the Uniformity of Nature

Induction means “inference of a generalized conclusion from particular instances.”
For example, an example of using induction would be inferring that gravity will be
the same in the future because gravity has been a certain way in the past.

Induction depends upon the uniformity of nature, or the principle that the future
will resemble the past. However, atheists believe in a contingent, or chance,
universe, which means they cannot justify their reliance upon the uniformity of
nature.

Atheist David Hume made this problem famous. He writes:

From causes which appear similar we expect similar effects. This is the sum of all
our experimental conclusions. Now it seems evident that, if this conclusion were
formed by reason, it would be as perfect at first, and upon one instance, as after
ever so long a course of experience. But the case is far otherwise. Nothing so like
as eggs; yet no one, on account of this appearing similarity, expects the same
taste and relish in all of them. It is only after a long course of uniform
experiments in any kind, that we attain a firm reliance and security with regard to
a particular event. Now where is that process of reasoning which, from one
instance, draws a conclusion, so different from that which it infers from a hundred
instances that are nowise different from that single one? This question I propose
as much for the sake of information, as with an intention of raising difficulties.
I cannot find, I cannot imagine any such reasoning.

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 4.

In other words, Hume is saying that there is no rational reason to assume that a
future occurrence of something will be like a past occurrence.

Likewise, popular atheist Bertrand Russel has said this:

Domestic animals expect food when they see the person who usually feeds them. We
know that all these rather crude expectations of uniformity are liable to be
misleading. The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last
wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of
nature would have been useful to the chicken.

Bertrand Russel, The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter VI

To summarize, atheists depend upon induction and the uniformity of nature to draw
conclusions, but they cannot justify the uniformity of nature. According to the
atheistic worldview, there is no reason why the future will resemble the past.

Morality
Bahnsen has said this concerning the atheist’s moral problem:

In an atheist universe, there’s no obligation for us to care for each other

whatsoever because we’re nothing more but bags of biological chemicals and things
subject to the laws of physics. Mr. Tabash has been asked a very good question.
It’d be nice if he finally would come out and address it and deal with it rather
than skirting it.

How do values comport with his view of the universe? Now, no one doubts that
atheists feel love. I agree they do because I know they’re made in the image of God
I can account for the love that they feel.

I can account for the compassion they want to show, but they cannot account for it
because every time they do, they end up appealing to things which are not molecules
in motion. Talk about fictitious projections—he thinks that’s what my god is—
without this God, we couldn’t reason at all or make these moral judgments.

But you make a fictitious projection that there is something like value or love
when all you have to work with are molecules in motion. It should be commented
somewhere along the line because it’s just not right for a man to keep making
remarks that are distorted and false and just think he can walk away from that
publicly.

-----------------------

Problems With Atheistic Materialism – Greg Bahnsen

Three Foundational Worldviews
You either have materialism, dualism, or some religious philosophy, and of course,
there’s a plethora of religious philosophies. How do we, as presuppositionalists
pursue Step Four: showing the failure to provide the preconditions of
intelligibility with respect to the different worldviews that we can encounter?

Materialism
Let’s start with the materialist. We want to point out to the materialist that he
or she can claim

that only concrete particular things exist

that there are no immaterial or abstract realities
that he or she can claim that all events are random
there’s no personal plan, no control over this world in which we live
And he or she can claim that reality amounts to matter in motion.

But, they cannot think or act or reason in that way. They can claim that, but they
can’t reason or act, cannot think, in that fashion at all.

Five Questions for Atheist Materialists

Five questions quickly to address to the materialist and to the atheist.

Why be rational?
What’s the origin of life?
Why think in terms of scientific inference?
Why think in terms of general principles?
Why be more?
I’m going to talk about each one of them, but I want you to see there’s an
overwhelming avalanche of philosophical problems with materialism.

1. Why Be Rational?
Why do I be rational? I once had a radio dialogue with George Smith, who wrote The
Case Against God and this book is really played up and so forth, and it’s supposed
to take all the great arguments, you know, into account in the community, you know,
deep and profound and so forth.

And in my interview with him on the radio, I said, “George, one of the basic flaws
I find in your book is your conception of Christian faith. You have the idea that
reason takes all of us so far and then some of us in this world have a leap of
Christian faith that goes beyond reason.”

I want to point out that in the Augustinian tradition that’s not our conception of
reason and faith. We believe that all reasoning rests upon faith, and so faith is
none other than reason. Faith is the most reasonable thing because reason itself
relies on it.

I notice that in your book you say all of us must be rational and not follow this
Christian idea of reason. Now, his notion of reason is not really the Augustinian
one, but I pressed it further and I said, “But given your conception that reason is
apart from faith, right when you say that all men must follow their reasoning and
not do like the Christians and have a blind leap of faith, I want to know on what
basis you can say that.”

Why are men under obligation to be rational? You know, it’s just almost like
something the guy had never considered, or just blitzed his thinking. You know, I
don’t mean that he just crumbled on the radio. It’s really quite arrogant, wanted
to keep, you know, pushing things back at me.

That’s fine, but he didn’t have any answer for that. I said, “Now, I think all men
should be rational. I think we are under obligation to use our intellectual tools
to glorify God and learn about this world. We should be consistent, and so forth
and so on. I think we should believe things on good evidence. I believe everybody
should be rational, but I believe that because God requires all men to be
rational.”

So, within my worldview I can make sense of this demand for rationality, but you
know, if this world is “sound and fury signifying nothing,” why should anybody have
to be rational? Why don’t I just live moment by moment, and not worry about
inconsistencies or rational theories or intelligent ways of interpreting my
experience?

Why don’t I just think one thing one time and another thing another time and not
care about logic at all? After all, logic has nothing to do with this world. You
see, the strange thing is about the materialist is the materialist who wants to be
rational has already departed from this materialism.

Another aspect of this question, “Why be rational at all?” If the person you’re
talking to is really a materialist, then they have a naturalistic explanation for
everything that we think and do. The naturalist says what’s going on in this gray
matter in my cranium is controlled by the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology.

I don’t really think. I’m just like a weed that’s growing and this particular weed
expresses itself through vocal cords and all that, but nevertheless weeds don’t
think and make decisions and neither do I. We’re all subject basically to the laws
of physics. I’m just at a more complicated level, a more complex level.

So, if naturalism is true, then there is no mind and there is no objective

reasoning and no freedom to my thought. And so, if naturalism is true, why do you
call on people to be rational? If naturalism is true, there is no rationality.
There’s just whatever people end up thinking and doing.

Naturalism destroys the demand for rationality.

2. What’s the Origin of Life?

Second, what’s the origin of life? If that’s the atheist worldview, where does life
come from? According to the atheist’s theory—the reigning dogma or prejudice in our
day, as you know—life came from non-life.

That ought to be enough right there to make any rational person snicker. Do you
think life came from non-life? In fact, I thought it was one of the established
principles of biology that spontaneous generation is not true.

And you know, if the atheist will say—I mean he may have a more sophisticated way
of doing this, basically the atheist says—we want one exception, just give us one
exception to our universal rule. Well, if I give you one exception, it’s not
universal.

Now, if we start giving out exceptions, then the Christian can just as easily say,
“I want an exception, too.” At every point that you think that what I’m saying is
not rational, not consistent, then I just want an exception from the command of
rationality.

No, I cannot give you an exception to, “Where did life come from?” The idea that
there was a prebiotic phase of evolution where chemicals just somehow came together
accidentally and life originated is a preposterous scientific theory.

It’s a preposterous philosophical notion, too, because it assumes that something

that doesn’t have any of the characteristics of the final product came together
with something else that had none of the characteristics of the final property, but
in bringing those two somethings together, you got the final product.

It makes no difference how much you tinker with our work, with the cake mix. You’re
not ever going to get a political constitution out of a cake mix. And I don’t mean
a cake mix box having somehow a whole constitution in it.

You all know how to make it. Well, maybe you don’t all know, but you have some
general idea of how cakes are made. You also have some idea of the character of
political constitutions. They have no relationship to each other—they don’t share,
you know, attributes.

And so, for somebody to say, “I think political constitutions arise from cake
mixes,” you say, “Well that’s preposterous.” And some will say, “Give us time.
We’re working on it.” And that’s essentially what the evolutionist is doing.

He says, “Well, that’s right. Life and intelligence and morality have attributes
which don’t have anything to do with inert chemicals, but give us time. We’re
working on it. Let us tinker with the cake mix, and eventually we’ll get freedom.
We’ll get morality. We’ll get intelligence. We’ll get life itself.”

Inorganic things do not by mechanical reconfiguration give rise to the organic. And
so, secondly, we see the absurdity of the atheistic materialistic worldview and
that they have qualities coming from their opposites: life coming from non-life,
the moral coming from the non-moral, the intelligent coming from the unintelligent.

That’s not good science or good philosophy. Why be rational? What’s the origin of
life?

3. Why Think in Terms of Scientific Inference?

Thirdly, why think in terms of scientific inference at all? If you’re a materialist
and you believe that everything happens by chance—there is no personal control over
the universe and what happens in history—then how can you hold to the uniformity of
nature?

In a random, chance universe, there is no basis for expecting the way things that
happen in the past to be the way they happen in the future. Now, you need to be
aware of the fact as a Christian apologist that all human reasoning, all human
experience, all use of language presupposes uniformity.

Why is that? Well, if the way the natural world operates is radically different
from moment to moment, then I couldn’t learn anything. I couldn’t learn anything
because every experience I have doesn’t give me any basis, by analogy, for what’s
going to happen later.

Okay? So I stubbed my toe this night, and it hurts. That has nothing to do with
whether stubbing my toe will hurt in the future, if it’s a completely random
universe.

But if there is uniformity in the natural order, then from analogy, from past
experience, I can predict what will happen in the future. So I’m going to avoid,
you know, bumping my toes into that chair leg. I don’t want that kind of pain.

That’s a very homespun, down-to-earth illustration. Sending someone to the moon

based on calculations and observations and experiments and so forth we’ve done in
the past. I mean you’d have to be out of your mind to get in a rocket to be sent to
the moon if you really thought this universe was random.

But somebody says, “Trust us. We’ve done a lot of tests in the past.” But why do
you think those tests in the past provide any model or analogy for what will happen
in the future? If you’re an atheist, why be scientific at all?

If you’re an atheist, there’s no uniformity to nature. Now, I once debated an

atheist, Dr. Stein, who, when confronted with this kind of thing, said, “Well, it’s
just the characteristics of the material world to be uniform.”

Anybody see any kind of unargued philosophical bias here? Now, the most obvious
indication of bias is that he just wants to say the world’s like this, pure and
simple. “Oh, you don’t need a reason for that.”

Now, science is the demand for—what?—a reason for the events that take place and
what you want to tell me, then, Dr. Stein, is the edifice of science rests upon no
reason. So, science rests upon the opposite of itself, indeed, the very violation
of what it demands.

“You don’t need reasons for the uniformity of nature,” you say, but then everything
else calls for reasoning, for causes of the events that take place. So, you’re not
even living in terms of your own worldview.

But, I’m going to press beyond this. When he says that matter simply has this
character, what has he assumed about matter? That it’s not constantly changing,
right? That it has, “a character,” but the very notion that matter has an
unchanging character is the very question under dispute: does matter have an
unchanging character, so that whenever you put the vinegar and the soda together,
the cork pops off?

Is that one of the attributes of vinegar and soda, in combination? That hydrogen is
released and so the cork is going to pop up? Well, only if hydrogen from Tuesday is
like hydrogen on Wednesday, vinegar from Tuesday is like vinegar on Wednesday, and
so forth. Only if matter has an inherent character can we do these predictions.

But, that’s the very thing we’re asking for. What’s the basis for making these
predictions? You can’t say the material world is predictable. Why? Well, because
its character is to be predictable.

That’s just unreasoning prejudice. And so here, we have the atheist without any
rational foundation for rationality and reasoning, any rational foundation for the
origin of life, without any rational foundation for science.

4. Why Think in Terms of General Principles?

Fourthly, why should an atheist think in terms of any general principals?
Everybody, to think, must use general principles. That is to say, everybody is
committed to classes of things.

Our experiences are not taken as novel, new experiences, one by one by one by one
by one by one, having no connection with anything before. Not everything is brand
new.

Okay? So last few nights, I’ve been in the same hotel room and when I’ve gotten up
every morning, it was the same hotel room. That’s what I want to say. But if
materialism is true, and only material particulars exist, then it turns out the
experience I had getting up in the hotel room the first morning is not the same
experience as I had the second morning, the third, and so forth. Those are all just
momentary experiences.

And therefore, there’s no sameness between them unless classes exist. To put it
another way, unless something called similarity is real, but is similarity a
particular thing that we encounter? Have any of you ever run into similarity
itself?

I’ve never known anybody say, “Dr. Bahnsen, I’m really worried. I’ve lost my, you
know, my quantity of similarity. I don’t know where I put it.” Similarity is not
the sort of thing that you materially encounter.

Here’s something else you don’t encounter in the material world: the laws of logic.
The laws of logic are general principles of reasoning. They’re prescriptive in
character. The classes are general principles that we think in terms of are
descriptive in character.

But nevertheless, they are both immaterial. When I say classes are descriptive and
immaterial, I think in terms of giraffes and cats and running, and events and
qualities that can be categorized together. So, there is “cowness” in terms of
which I recognize particular animals in the field as cows.

I don’t just say, “Oh, there’s Beulah and there’s Beauregard. There’s no connection
between the two of them.” I say, there’s something that makes me say, “They’re both
cows.” But that “something” that makes me say they’re both cows is not a cow, nor
is it anything physical.

In fact, if it were, then I’d have to have something that unites whatever this
something is and the two cows into another category by which I can unite. I can
say, “This ‘something’ belongs to ‘cowness’ and not to ‘catness.'”

And so, whatever it is that unites the cows together cannot itself be a material
particular. It has to be universal. It has to be abstract and therefore, it has to
be immaterial.

We’re back to my point. The unbeliever who is an atheist therefore is making use of
categories, which are immaterial, even if it’s only the category of similarity, and
laws of logic, which are immaterial and prescriptive for the way that we should
reason.

And so, why should we reason or think in terms of general principles at all? If we
are materialist, why have categories like barns and redness and cows and the laws
of logic, if you’re a materialist?

Now, y’all wanted illustrations, and so these are the illustrations. I may give you
more, but this is the sort of thing you need to think in terms of. Many of us don’t
want to be philosophical brawling in some of this, and because of brevity and also
because of my own training and personality, it may seem somewhat abstract, but all
of you can think this way. All of you can push these issues.

With some practice, you’ll do it better. There’s no question about that. But you
need not be intimidated by it because it’s philosophical. Everybody’s got to ask,
“Why is it that we speak of these objects as being cows? Why don’t we just say
experience? Why don’t we just have names for every single experience we have and
nothing is ever common? Why do we think that there are common or universal laws of
things? The only reason I do so is because as a Christian I know that the mind of
God unifies the world and controls the world and my thinking should emulate his but
I don’t know why a materialist, why an atheist would do so.”

5. Why Be Moral?
And then the fifth question that I rattled off so quickly is, “Why be moral?” If
naturalism is true, I can say two things for sure:

First, there are no absolutes. If naturalism is true, everything’s in flux and

whatever happens, happens. There are no absolutes, there are no absolute
prescriptions, there’s only descriptions of moment to moment to moment experience.
If naturalism is true, then from that, we’d have to say there can be no absolute
prescriptions, but if there are no absolute prescriptions, there’s no ethics
system. There’s no, “Thou shalt or thou shalt not,” which is without qualification.
There’s no universal obligation in a world that’s completely naturalistic.
Second, if naturalism is true, there’s no human freedom or dignity by which people
choose to live a life which is noble or ignoble, to do what is right or what is
wrong. If naturalism is true, we don’t have any freedom or any dignity to maintain
anyway. What is, is.
Pretty profound right? Whatever happens, happens, so that on the materialistic
approach to reality, when it’s reporting to us the Hitler engaged in genocide
against a number of human beings, or there are criminals who have raped and killed
people, or people who have molested children, all you can say as a naturalist is,
“Poop happens.”

Right? Things that are ugly and smelly take place. What else can I say? I can’t
tell you it’s wrong. Because in a naturalistic universe, there is no wrong. There
is no freedom to choose between right and wrong. And there’s no absolute
prescription by which whatever I did could be right or wrong.

So, naturalism destroys all morality. Now I should warn you that many atheists who
have gone to the University and have studied under atheist professors will have
been taught, “Here’s the answer to that problem.” Naturalists try to live moral
lives, and so you’re wrong to say that naturalism destroys ethics because people
can choose values by which to live.

Well, first of all, you need to say, “You mean they can choose values by which to
live?” I thought in the naturalistic world, everything happens by the laws of
physics, chemistry, and biology, but whatever it is, it’s going on there. Let’s not
call it a choice. That’s kind of problematic, isn’t it? Whatever it is going on
there is still not an absolute prescription that’s being chosen. It’s just what
somebody decides to do.

So let’s say that you decided to live a noble life of self-sacrifice and protection
of the weak and so you’re really upset with what Hitler did. Do you come to me, or
I’m talking to you, and I say “You really can’t condemn what Hitler does.” You’re
going to say, “I do condemn what Hitler does, as I believe in self-sacrifice, in
protecting the weak.”

I say, “Well that’s fine that you’ve chosen to live that kind of life.” My point
is, you can’t condemn Hitler for not having chosen the same lifestyle with you
because in your naturalistic presuppositions, there is no obligation for Hitler to
be like you, to be self sacrificial, or to care for the weak.

At the debate I had at Davis with Edward Tabash, this Jewish lawyer, he complained
about his relatives having died at Auschwitz. That’s a very sensitive subject. I
tried to address that sensitively. I said, “I as a Christian, condemn what happened
to your relatives. It’s morally outrageous. It’s atrocious. But what I have to
point out to you is that on your worldview, you have no basis for condemning it at
all. On your worldview, why should Hitler be under any obligation not to torture
and maim and kill anybody he wants? What one animal does to another animal is
morally irrelevant, if you’re a naturalist because what is, is. Poop happens.
That’s it. That’s all you can say. You don’t like it, you find it smelly, but it
nevertheless happens. End of story.”

Conclusion
Okay, so when you deal with the worldview of atheism or materialism and finally get
down to this level, we’ve just said, “You see, you can’t provide the preconditions
of intelligibility, for rationality, or understanding life, for thinking
scientifically, or thinking at all logically and in terms of general principles, or
being moral.

So when somebody says, “Well, your Christian worldview is already assumed when you
take the evidence and are led to Christian conclusions. But, on my non-Christian
worldview. I don’t have to be led to those conclusions,” we have to say, “You’re
right. if you keep your autonomous presuppositions, the evidence we give you will
not lead you to Christian conclusions, but you won’t be able to draw any
conclusions because you won’t be able to be rational at all.”

The proof of God’s existence—is the coin gonna drop now?—is what? That without God,
you couldn’t prove anything. Dealing with the materialist, many people will say,
however, is the easy task, once you catch on to these criticisms. And really it
isn’t all that difficult. It will become easier for you as you do it more and more.
I mean, the materialist is, philosophically, I mean, a sitting duck
-----------------------
Gordon Clark Quotes – Ultimate Presuppositions, Axioms

Basic worldviews are never demonstrated; they are chosen

Basic worldviews are never demonstrated; they are chosen. William James and
Bertrand Russell may believe in a pluralistic universe, but they can offer no
demonstration of this, the most fundamental of their intellectual beliefs. The
mechanist believes that all natural phenomena can be reduced to mathematical,
quantitative equations, but he never gives a mathematical demonstration of his
belief. So it is with every world-view; the first principle cannot be proved –
precisely because it is first. It is the first principle that provides the basis
for demonstrating subordinate propositions. Now if such be the case, the thoughtful
person is forced to make a voluntary choice. As a matter of fact, the thoughtless
person as well is forced to choose, though the necessity to make a choice and the
particular choice made may not be so obvious. It is obvious, however, that a
thoughtful person, one who wishes to understand, one who wants to think and live
consistently, must choose one or another first principle.

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 19

No demonstration of God is possible; our belief is a voluntary choice… but… it is
not sane, it is not logical, to choose an illogical principle
Still it remains true that no demonstration of God is possible; our belief is a
voluntary choice; but if one must choose without a strict proof, none the less it
is possible to have sane reasons of some sort to justify the choice. Certainly
there are sane reasons for rejecting some choices. One most important fact is the
principle of consistency. In the case of skepticism inconsistency lies immediately
on the surface. Explicit atheism requires only a little analysis before self-
contradiction is discovered. Some statements of naturalism more successfully
disguise their flaws. But all these choices are alike in that it is not sane, it is
not logical, to choose an illogical principle.

Consistency extends further than a first principle narrowly considered, so that it

can be shown to be self-contradictory in itself; it extends into the system deduced
from the first principle or principles. The basic axiom or axioms must make
possible a harmony or system in all our thoughts, words, and actions. Should
someone say (misquoting by the omission of an adjective) that consistency is the
mark of small minds, that he does not like systems, that he will act on one
principle at one time and another at another, that he does not choose to be
consistent, there would be no use arguing with him, for he repudiates the rules,
the necessary rules of argumentation. Such a person cannot argue against theism,
for he cannot argue at all.

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 41-42

What “postulate” means
When now the theist speaks of theism as a practical
in any “as-if” philosophy. He means that God exists
daily life by that belief. It is called a postulate
first principle and not a theorem derived from more
postulate, he is not indulging
and that one should conduct his
because it is an indemonstrable
ultimate premises.

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 42-43

The truth of the Bible is the basic axiom of Christian theism
It is better to say that the truth of the Bible is the basic axiom of Christian
theism, for it is there alone that one learns what God is. It is there alone that
one learns what man is. And what children are. And what college students are. And
what education should be. There is still more but this chapter does not aim to give
an account of the entire system. In conformity with tradition, the argument has
centered on the question of God’s existence. As an axiom or first premise it is
incapable of proof or demonstration. Right from the start, at the very beginning,
we say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.”

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 43

The Christian system starts with God
The Christian system starts with God – not just any sort of God, but with a very
definite God, the God of the Bible.

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 105

Can [these assumptions or axioms] be proved?
But what about these assumptions or axioms? Can they be proved? It would seem that
they cannot, for they are the starting points of an argument, and if the argument
starts with them, there is no preceding argumentation. Accordingly, after the
humanist or theist has worked out a consistent system by arranging all his
propositions as theorems in a series of valid demonstrations, how is either of them
to persuade the other to accept his unproved axioms? And the question is all the
more perplexing when it is suspected that the axioms were chosen for the express
purpose of deducing precisely these conclusions.

A Christian View of Men and Things, 26

---------------------

presup on non-christian religions

Why the Christian Worldview?

And that leaves only one option if you’re not going to be a Christian. Is that you
have to have an alternative religious worldview. We say God’s the answer to all
this. God created the physical world out of nothing. It’s God’s mind that’s been
the basis for the laws of logic. It’s God’s character that gives us moral laws by
which we live. So we have the preconditions of intelligibility within the Christian
worldview.

Somebody says, “Yes, well, why the Christian worldview?” What is one of the
questions that you want me to answer is, “Why does it have to be the Christian
worldview? Why not just theism in general?”

There’s No General Theism

Okay, you’ve asked. So, I’m going to tell you. Because there isn’t any such thing
as theism in general. It can’t be theism in general because there ain’t anything
like that. There’s only particular versions of these. Okay? Every version of theism
therefore needs to be treated as its own particular kind of worldview.

How to Answer Theistic Worldviews

And how do you answer the various versions of theism? In the same way that you’ve
answered the materialist and the dualist: by doing an internal critique of that
worldview.

How would that work? Well, to do an internal critique of a different religion,

you’re obviously going to ask at least this question: “Why do you believe what you
believe? On what authority do you do so?”

Arbitrariness
And if there is no answer to that question, then you’re dealing with something that
is—look at number one—you’re ejected because now that’s just arbitrariness.

But you talk to some other religious point of view and you say, “Why do you believe
this?” People say, “I don’t know. I just do.” Well, that’s arbitrary. So that’s no
threat to Christianity. You say, “Oh. So you have arbitrariness or you have
Christian rationality.” Those are the choices.

Well again, in apologetics, that’s all we need to reduce things to. If you wish to
be rational, give a reason for the hope that is in you, you wish to be rational,
you have to be a Christian. In order to be a—whatever it is—out here, you need to
give up rationality and affirm arbitrariness.

Everybody can believe whatever they want. Of course, the arbitrary person has to
allow you the same arbitrariness and everybody else. So there’s no apologetical
argument with that kind of religion. You hear me?

Sure, we want to witness to such a person. Yes, such a person’s made in the image
of God and really can’t successfully, able to live in this world apart from God.
Yes, such a person is under the condemnation of God and has guilt and so forth. But
there’s no apologetical argument with such a person because such a person is purely
arbitrary.

Another Prophet
All right, well then, you’re going to have another kind of answer. An answer that
says, “Well, because we have a great prophet who told us these things.” That’s the
Confucian answer. They don’t call him a prophet. He’s a “wise man.”

You might think, “Okay, now what do I do? I’ve got Jesus. They’ve got Confucius.”
Well, I’ve got Jesus and Jesus provides the preconditions of intelligibility—and it
doesn’t sound real warm and pious, intimate to put it that way, but we’ve talked
about this—Jesus gives me a foundation for wisdom, rather than foolishness.

What does Confucius have going for him? What does Confucius say? “Here’s what the
nobleman is to do. The heavens declare this is what the nobleman is to do.”

Well, I have the right to say, “Well, Confucius, that’s just your opinion.” Back to
number one. That’s rejected too because for everything Confucius said, Buddha said
something. You know? And for everything in the Bhagavad Gita, you can find
something that accounts, that fits in with the Dow. The fact that you have
religious leaders or prophets or wise men are great people, saying things doesn’t
mean there’s a good reason to follow what they’re saying.

The difference between Christianity and Confucianism, Buddhism, and so forth, is

that Christianity’s got an apologetic. We don’t just arbitrarily choose Jesus over
Confucius. We’ve got historical evidence, we’ve got philosophical evidence, we’ve
got all kinds of reasons for believing what Jesus said, not the least of which is,
“Our lives make sense and all the facts of history make sense within the Christian
worldview taught by Jesus.”

That isn’t true for Confucius. In fact, it gets really bad when you come to the
Bhagavad Gita. Here’s the Bhagavad Gita that many people say, “Well, they’ve got
their religious book, you Christians have your religious book.”

Oh, not so fast. I mean, that’s what an amateur would say. If you’ve really done
any reading or any study, it’s a big mistake to put the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita
in the same category. Why?

In the first place, because the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t claim that a personal,
sovereign, all-controlling God has spoken and this is the book that tells us what
He said.

You know why the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t say that? Because it doesn’t believe there’s
a personal, holy, sovereign God who can speak. And so, this book cannot be the
result of God’s revelation in the personal sense that the Bible is.

That doesn’t mean the Bible is automatically right, but don’t think that the
Bhagavad Gita is running in the same race as the Bible. They’re not doing the same
thing at all. Moreover, when you start comparing the Bhagavad Gita as a worldview
and the Bible as a worldview, the Bhagavad Gita destroys the possibility of the
comparison because, you know, if the Bhagavad Gita is correct in what it says,
there is no difference between it and the Bible.

Oh, and by the way, not to overstate the obvious, there’s no difference between you
and the Bhagavad Gita either. There’s no difference between you and the book and
the earth and the sky and the trees and everything. We’re all in this thing
together, and none of the distinctions between sky and tree and stream and book and
human being make any difference.

Indeed, none of the distinctions between logically sound and logically unsound,
morally good and morally bad make any difference either. Oh no, it’s a huge mistake
to think the Bhagavad Gita is running in the same race with the Bible. The Bhagavad
Gita undermines all logic and reasoning, all morality, all human personality, all
human choice.

So, what do we have left? We have the arbitrary religions that say Confucius say,
Buddha say, so forth, and say, yeah everybody has an opinion. That’s just
arbitrary.

You have the books that refute themselves like the Bhagavad Gita. There’s no
rational basis for science or logic, given that worldview.

Non-Christian, Theistic Worldviews

And then you have one other class of religions, the only one really is of interest
in this race for the preconditions of intelligibility. Materialists can’t provide
them. Dualists can’t provide them. The vast majority and vast majority of religions
of the world can’t provide them.

But somebody says, “What about the Muslims?” Because they’ve got a personal God,
they’ve got a revelation, they’ve got a book where it’s recorded. What about the
Mormons? What about people like that?

And although in abstract, in terms of the general format or outline of what I’m
presenting to you, you might think, “Okay, finally, we’ve gotten to a good
competitor,” it turns out at the point where we get a good competitor, we have the
easiest way of dealing with them.

How do you deal with those religions? You deal with them biblically. And the reason
you deal with them biblically is because every one of them is committed to the
Bible. There are no unique competitors with Christianity.
Islam
The only ones that appear to give us a run for our money are all dependent upon our
worldview. Did you know that? The Muslim faith is based on the Quran. The Quran
itself endorses the law of Moses, Psalms, and David, an the gospel of Jesus.

Muhammad said that the Quran is nothing more than the end of the revelatory process
that began way back in what we call the Bible. And so Muslims, if they are true to
the Quran, and they must be, because that’s one of the pillars, after all—Muhammad
is the prophet of God—Muslims must be committed to the previous revelation of the
Bible.

And I’m not saying this is an easy thing. Indeed, psychologically and socially,
culturally, it’s a very hard thing. But logically, in terms of apologetic strategy,
it’s an easy thing to answer how you deal with the Muslim. You deal with the Muslim
biblically.

You go to the Quran and show the Quran endorses the Bible. Then, you go to the
Bible and show that what the Quran says contradicts the Bible, so that on the
Quran’s own terms, you must reject the Quran.

Let me run this past you slowly. I know time is out today, but I’ll try to slowly
do this. The Quran says God revealed himself, Allah revealed himself, in Moses, in
the law. So we go back to the law, which is endorsed by the Quran. In the law,
Moses says any future prophet that comes along must be judged by the previous
revelation that God has given.

So the Quran sends us to Moses. Moses says you must judge the Quran or any other
prophet by previous revelation. Then, you point out that what the Quran reveals or
claims to reveal is in conflict, indeed, in dire conflict with the law of Moses,
the gospel of Jesus, and the Psalms of David.

And so the Quran can be refuted on its own terms. How do they conflict? Well, time
won’t allow me to go into a full comparison at this point, but they conflict, first
of all, in that according to the Quran, God cannot have a son, but according to the
gospel of Jesus, God did have a son and his name is Jesus.

According to the Quran, people can be right with a law, to be right with God by
doing good works. According to the law of Moses, nobody can be right with God, that
we come into this world dirty and filthy and that’s why circumcision was taught to
the Jews. No one enters this world except through an organ that has to be cleansed
in the eyes of God and no one can be right with God without blood sacrifice.
There’s no blood sacrifice in the Koran. There’s no need for blood atonement
because your good works are to compensate for your bad works.

And so, in terms of their view of God and their view of salvation, Muslims stand in
utter contradiction to the teaching of Moses and David and Jesus. And so, once
again, the internal critique of Islam is it rests upon the Bible, it says. And so
you can go to the Bible to refute the Quran.

Mormonism
How about Mormons? You say, “What do you do with Mormons?” Because they’re not like
Muslims, a different religion. They’re some kind of version of Christian, yeah.

But, Mormons will all tell you what that the Bible is their book, and the Book of
Mormon is just like the capstone of the Bible. It’s just another revelation the
Christians have left out.

Well, but if they honor the Bible and the Book of Mormon, then you can argue with
them by comparing the Bible and the Book of Mormon to show the Book of Mormon
conflicts with the Bible. Now, what will Muslims and Mormons and all the rest—well,
there aren’t that many—but in this narrow category of religions that ape
Christianity, what will they do once you point out the Bible conflicts with their
revelation or putative revelation?

The Reliability of the Bible

It never fails. They’ll turn around and say, “Well, then you don’t have the right
Bible.” Right, the Muslims will say the Bible’s been corrupted and that in its
original form it really did agree with the Quran.

Number one (arbitrariness). The only reason Muslims say that the Bible has been
corrupted is because it conflicts with the Koran. They have no evidence of such
corruption, no history of such corruption.

They say, “Oh, you Christians, you tampered with it.” Have you ever known somebody
to accuse another person of his own sin? Takes one to know one? You know why
Muslims think Christians corrupted the Bible? Now, of course there’s no evidence
that they did.

As that as a matter of fact, the version of the Koran that we have today arises
from a recension of the textual evidence in the third caliphate of Uthman. They
called in all the conflicting texts and burned them upon pain of death.

So maybe, since they’ve done that, they think we’ve done the same thing, but there
is no evidence. That surmises only from prejudicial conjunction. There’s no
argument here. It’s just, “You must be wrong because we must be right.”

The Mormons will tell us, “Well, the Bible’s been corrupted and you really need the
interpretation of Joseph Smith.” Yeah, but Joseph Smith’s the only one who saw the
plates and only one given the miraculous ability to translate them. And about this
Joseph Smith, you should keep in mind that he’s been twice convicted—and we know
this—of being a con man in the state of New York. The con man became the prophet of
God who tells us he alone has seen the gold plates and knows how to translate them
and we should all now give up the public evidence of the Bible for this.

That’s asking too much for anybody to be reasonable in that way. Very quickly, at
the end here of our session, what I’m getting at is even those religions that ape
Christianity can be dealt with in terms of an internal critique of what they say.
And so, I think presuppositionalism is not only a strong—indeed the strongest—
argument for Christianity, it can deal with all comers as well.
--------------
Christians, Atheists, and the Burden of Proof – Gordon Clark

Do Christians or atheists have the burden of proof? This is what Gordon Clark
writes on the subject. These excerpts come from the article Atheism at the Trinity
Foundation.

The Atheist Challenge

“But atheists, like agnostics, shift the burden of proof and say the theist is
under obligation to demonstrate the truth of his view; but the atheist considers
himself under no such obligation.”

Clark’s Answer
“Every system of theology or philosophy must have a starting point. Logical
Positivists started with the unproved assumption that a sentence can have no
meaning unless it can be tested by sensation. To speak without referring to
something that can be touched, seen, smelled, and especially measured, is to speak
nonsense. But they never deduce this principle. It is their non-demonstrable axiom.
Worse, it is self-contradictory, for it has not been seen, smelled, or measured;
therefore it is self-condemned as nonsense.

If the axioms of other secularists are not nonsense, they are nonetheless axioms.
Every system must start somewhere, and it cannot have started before it starts. A
naturalist might amend the Logical Positivist’s principle and make it say that all
knowledge is derived from sensation. This is not nonsense, but it is still an
empirically unverifiable axiom. If it is not self-contradictory, it is at least
without empirical justification. Other arguments against empiricism need not be
given here: The point is that no system can deduce its axioms.

The inference is this: No one can consistently object to Christianity’s being based
on a non-demonstrable axiom. If the secularists exercise their privilege of basing
their theorems on axioms, then so can Christians. If the former refuse to accept
our axioms, then they can have no logical objection to our rejecting theirs.
Accordingly, we reject the very basis of atheism, Logical Positivism, and, in
general, empiricism. Our axiom shall be, God has spoken. More completely, God has
spoken in the Bible. More precisely, what the Bible says, God has spoken.”
---------------------

Does Presuppositional Apologetics Ignore Evidence?

Atheists often argue that presuppositional apologetics provides no evidence for
their claims. However, this is not a valid argument against presuppositional
apologetics.

Quotes About Presuppositional Apologetics Ignoring Evidence

The question of the existence of God is a factual question, and should be answered
in the same way as any other factual questions.

Atheist Gordon Stein

Presuppositional Apologetics Does Not Ignore Evidence
It should be obvious that different types of evidence are used to prove different
things. Presuppositional apologetics does indeed use evidence to prove its claims.
However, critics of presuppositional apologetics simply do not accept the evidence
provided.

Greg Bahnsen says this concerning the nature of evidence:

We might ask , “Is there a box of crackers in the pantry?” And we know how we would
go about answering that question. But that is a far, far cry from the way we go
about answering questions determining the reality of say, barometric pressure,
quasars, gravitational attraction, elasticity, radio activity, natural laws, names,
grammar, numbers, the university itself that you’re now at, past events,
categories, future contingencies, laws of thought, political obligations,
individual identity over time, causation, memories, dreams, or even love or beauty.
In such cases, one does not do anything like walk to the pantry and look inside for
the crackers. There are thousands of existence or factual questions, and they are
not at all answered in the same way in each case.

Just think of the differences in argumentation and the types of evidences used by
biologists, grammarians, physicists, mathematicians, lawyers, magicians, mechanics,
merchants, and artists. It should be obvious from this that the types of evidence
one looks for in existence or factual claims will be determined by the field of
discussion and especially by the metaphysical nature of the entity mentioned in the
claim under question.

Greg Bahnsen
Since God is metaphysically non-material, the evidences used in presuppositional
apologetics to prove Christianity are philosophical in nature, not empirical or
experiential.
--------------------

Gordon Clark Quotes – Skepticism

Skepticism is not a worldview

Etymologically a skeptic is one who seeks; but philosophically a skeptic is one who
does not find. Or, rather, he finds that there is nothing to be found. There is no
truth, and knowledge is impossible. Aside from the self-contradiction of asserting
the truth that there is no truth, skepticism is not a world-view. In particular no
theories or policies or policies of education can be deduced. Neither can
objections against naturalism or theism be based on pure ignorance. It is therefore
useless to spend further time on skepticism.

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 34

The theology of feeling
…the chief objection to the theology of feeling is its assertion that God is
unknowable. It should be perfectly clear that no man knows enough to assert the
existence of an object of which he knows nothing. And not only so, but the
assertion that an object exists of which nothing can be known reduces to
skepticism. The right of each man to assert the kind of unknowable he chooses
throws all objectivity into confusion; and the implicit contradiction contained in
asserting that something cannot be known cuts the foundation out from under any and
all knowledge.

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 149

If reality is deeper than thought…
…if reality is deeper than thought, it follows that thought is not real. Or, more
clearly expressed, if thought and the object of thought are never the same, as he
says, then we never know the object. At best we have only a representation of the
object, but a representation that cannot be known to represent it.

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 151

escape from irrational chaos
But perhaps there is no escape from irrational chaos except, not exactly Hegelian
monism, but a logical completeness of some sort.

A Christian View of Men and Things, 22-24

If truth is impossible… it follows that we have already obtained it
Skepticism is the position that nothing can be demonstrated. And how, we ask, can
you demonstrate that nothing can be demonstrated? The skeptic asserts that nothing
can be known. In his haste he said that truth was impossible. And is it true that
truth is impossible? For, if no proposition is true, then at least one proposition
is true – the proposition, namely, that no proposition is true. If truth is
impossible, therefore, it follows that we have already attained it.

A Christian View of Men and Things, 26

------------------
Gordon Clark Quotes – Atheism, Naturalism

The atheist who asserts that there is no God… claims omniscience and omnipotence
The atheist who asserts that there is no God, asserts by the same words that he
holds the whole universe in his mind; he asserts that no fact, past, present,
future, near, or far, escapes his attention, that no power, however great, can
baffle or deceive him. In rejecting God, he claims omniscience and omnipotence. In
other words an atheist is one who claims that he himself is God; and the pantheist
must be said to join him in the same claim.
A Christian Philosophy of Education, 38
The… naturalistic view… implies that the mind… is an evolutionary product rather
than a divine image
This nontheistic, naturalistic view is difficult to accept because it implies that
the mind, too (as well as the body) is an evolutionary product rather than a divine
image. Instead of using eternal principles of logic, the mind operates with the
practical results of biological adaptation. Concepts and propositions neither reach
the truth nor even aim at it. Our equipment has evolved through a struggle to
survive. Reason is simply the human method of handling things. It is a simplifying
and therefore falsifying device. There is no evidence that our categories
correspond to reality. Even if they did, a most unlikely accident, no one could
know it; for to know that the laws of logic are adequate to the existent real, it
is requisite to observe the real prior to using the laws. But if this ever happened
with subhuman organisms, it never happens with the present species man. If now the
intellect is naturally produced, different types of intellect could equally well be
produced by slightly different evolutionary processes. Maybe such minds have been
produced, but are now extinct like the dinosaurs and dodos. This means, however,
that the concepts or intuitions of space and time—the law of contradiction, the
rules of inference—are not fixed and universal criteria of truth, but that other
races thought in other terms. Perhaps future races will also think in different
terms. John Dewey insisted that logic has already changed and will continue to
change. If now this be the case, our traditional logic is but a passing
evolutionary moment; our theories—dependent on this logic—are temporary reactions,
parochial social habits, and Freudian rationalizations; and therefore the
evolutionary theory, produced by these biological urges, cannot be true.

The difference between naturalism and theism—between the latest scientific opinions
on evolution and creation; between the Freudian animal and the image of God;
between belief in God and atheism—is based on their two different epistemologies.
Naturalism professes to learn by observation and analysis of experience; the
theistic view depends on Biblical revelation. No amount of observation and analysis
can prove the theistic position. Of course, no amount of observation and analysis
can prove evolution or any other theory. The secular philosophies all result in
total skepticism. In contrast, theism bases its knowledge on divinely revealed
propositions. They may not give us all truth; they may even give us very little
truth; but there is no truth at all otherwise. So much for the secular alternative.

A Christian Philosophy of Education, 137-139

---------------------
Gordon Clark – Answering Greg Bahnsen’s Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and
Defended
This is a response to the section of Greg Bahnsen’s Presuppositional Apologetics:
Stated and Defended where Bahnsen critiques Gordon Clark. Gray Crampton has already
written an excellent article here, which will be quoted from extensively. The
purpose of this post is to:

Add a table of contents and headings to help organize the answers to Bahnsen’s
criticism against Clark
Add some additional thoughts
Table of Contents
Did Clark Believe Christianity Is Only a Possibility?
Did Clark Put Logic Before God?
Does Clark’s Deductive System Lead to Skepticism?
Did Clark Believe Christianity Is Only a Possibility?
Bahnsen’s Criticism
Instead of laying down a stringent demand that the truth of God’s revealed Word be
accepted as the precondition for all intellectual endeavor and the indispensable
stipulation for even the activity of academic evaluation, Clark treats Christianity
as a possibility.
Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended, 142.
Summary Response – Epistemology vs Ad Hominem
Bahnsen misinterprets Clark’s position. When Clark deals with the subject of
epistemology, he is clear that the Bible is “the precondition for all intellectual
endeavor.” Clark demonstrates that other worldviews cannot explain where knowledge
comes from.

The examples that Bahnsen provides to demonstrate this point are most likely
instances where Clark is not dealing with epistemology, but rather using ad hominem
attacks to internally critique other worldviews, which is something that Bahnsen
himself does. Essentially, Clark is saying, “For the sake of argument, let’s assume
the foundational principles of this worldview (which are epistemologically
unjustified). Even if we assume them, we can show that Christianity is the superior
worldview.”

Crampton’s Response
Clark Is Clearly Certain that the Bible is the Word of God
The interesting thing here is that Dr. Bahnsen approvingly quotes Clark in
statements wherein he tells us how he uses the word “possibility.” According to Dr.
Clark, all “norms of possibility must be accepted from naturalistic scientism,
existential hunch, or the Biblical revelation with its miraculous supernaturalism”
(138). Then too, the author approvingly quotes Dr. Clark’s denial that there is any
certainty possible apart from divine revelation: “Only by accepting rationally
comprehensible…information on God’s authority [the Bible] can we hope to have a
sound philosophy and a true religion…. A rational life is impossible without being
based upon a divine revelation [the Bible].” “The Bible [is] the very Word of God”
(140). Further, Dr. Bahnsen states that Dr. Clark denied that there is any such
thing as neutrality when it comes to worldviews: “Methodology is never neutral”
(139). Certainly, then, whatever else Dr. Clark may be saying when he speaks of
“possibility,” it could not mean that he is denying or questioning that the Bible
is “certainly” the very Word of God.

The fact is that Dr. Clark did not consider the Bible only as “possibly” the Word
of God; he was certain that it is God’s inspired, infallible, inerrant Word to man.
As best as the present writer is able to discern, the passages cited by Bahnsen are
those being used by Dr. Clark, either in the sense that he is saying nothing more
than what has already been quoted, i.e., that “all norms of possibility” come from
axioms that are “necessary” for any worldview, Christian or non-Christian; or (as
Clark was fond of doing in the philosophical milieu in which he worked*) using such
language in the form of ad hominem arguments. It is beyond question, even as Dr.
Bahnsen has (at least implicitly) pointed out, that Gordon Clark’s apologetic
methodology presupposes the primacy of Scripture as providing the basis for all
proof. According to Clark, the Bible has a systematic monopoly on truth. It is
self-attesting and self-authenticating. It stands in judgment over all books and
ideas, and it is to be judged by no person or thing.

* Kenneth Talbot has pointed out that our understanding of the way Gordon Clark
approached matters in his writings had to do with the sitz im leben in which he
found himself. Dr. Clark lived and taught in an academic setting practically all of
his adult life. This being said, his writings often reflected the dynamic of
philosophical sophistry. Therefore, it would be a mistake to view his sophistry as
“weakness” concerning his theological commitment to the inspired, inerrant,
infallible, and authoritative Word of God.

Clark’s Ad Hominem and Reductio Ad Absurdum

Dr. Clark also believed that we must follow the apologetic principle taught in
Proverbs 26:4-5: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like
him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes.” The
Christian apologete is not to answer an unbeliever based on his starting point,
because then he would be just like the unbeliever. Rather, he is required to stand
on the truth of Biblical revelation, and argue from Scripture as his axiomatic
starting point. At the same time, the Christian apologete may use arguments, such
as the theological “evidences,” to refute the gainsayer. Here the apologete argues
in an ad hominem fashion to reveal the foolishness of non-Christian systems.
Standing on God’s infallible revelation, the Christian apologete can and should use
the evidences apagogically, “to answer the fool as his folly deserves.” The design
of this type of argumentation is to criticize internally the unbeliever’s
worldview, revealing its inconsistencies.

According to Dr. Clark, this apagogic methodology, consisting in a series of

reductiones ad absurdum, is the principal method available to a Biblical apologist.
The reason is that even though there is metaphysical common ground between
believers and unbelievers, in that both are created in the image of God, there is
no common epistemological ground. That is, there are no common theoretical
propositions, no common “notions,” between Christianity and non-Christian
philosophies. The ad hominem apagogic arguments are to be used against the
unbeliever, who is a covenant-breaker and already in possession of the innate idea
of the God against whom he is rebelling. The arguments are to be used in a fashion
that will attempt to make him epistemologically self-conscious (and thus God
conscious) of his covenant breaking rebellion.

Clark Is Using the Same Method as Bahnsen

It is worthy of note that in Appendix 1 of this book (269-278), the author himself
argues for “the necessity of revelational epistemology” without beginning with
Scripture. Now if he is using this tactic in an ad hominem fashion, then it is both
permissible and proper within a presuppositional approach to apologetics. But if he
is arguing “for” the truth of “the necessity of revelational epistemology,” then he
has violated his own presuppositional approach, the very thing for which he has
accused Dr. Clark. Dr. Bahnsen also adhered to the apagogic method endorsed by
Clark. He wrote: “the Christian apologist should seek to lay bare the character of
those presuppositions on which the non-Christian operates when arguing against the
[Christian] faith, demonstrating their self-vitiating quality, and then show the
suppressed [revelational] beliefs that make the unbeliever’s formal reasoning and
knowledge possible,” i.e., the system of truth taught in the Bible (289-290). Dr.
Bahnsen’s apologetic here does not differ substantially with that of Gordon Clark,
and neither believes that the Bible is only “possibly” the Word of God.

Did Clark Put Logic Before God?

Bahnsen’s Criticism
It is evident that what Clark takes as the criterion of bona fide revelation is
meeting the ultimate demands of logic.

Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended, 151.

Summary Response
Clark’s View of the Relationship Between God and Logic
Bahnsen is mistaken about Clark’s view of logic. Clark explicitly deals with this
criticism by saying that logic does not precede God, but is rather identified with
God. In other words, logic is God’s mind, or the way God thinks. This is exactly
how Bahnsen describes logic.

Bahnsen is not the first to have criticized Clark on this point, and below is
Clark’s summary of his answer:

The law of contradiction is not to be taken as an axiom prior to or independent of

God. The law is God thinking.

For this reason also, the law of contradiction is not subsequent to God. If one
should say that logic is dependent on God’s thinking, it is dependent only in the
sense that it is the characteristic of God’s thinking. It is not subsequent
temporally, for God is eternal and there was never a time when God existed without
thinking logically. One must not suppose that God’s will existed as an inert
substance before he willed to think.

As there is no temporal priority, so also there is no logical or analytical

priority. Not only was Logic the beginning, but Logic was God. If this unusual
translation of John’s Prologue still disturbs someone, he might yet allow that God
is his thinking. God is not a passive or potential substratum; he is actuality or
activity. This is the philosophical terminology to express the Biblical idea that
God is a living God. Hence logic is to be considered as the activity of God’s
willing.

Gordon H. Clark. “Clark and His Critics.” Apple Books. 137-138.

Clark’s Use of Logic in Apologetics
Regarding what Bahnsen says about Clark testing the Bible using logic, here are two
thoughts:

Clark is not claiming to prove Scripture using logic, but is rather merely
demonstrating that Scripture is self-consistent and non-contradictory.
Clark uses logic and the reductio ad absurdum apologetic method to demonstrate that
all non-biblical worldviews are self-contradictory and therefore false. Bahnsen
essentially does this same thing.
Clark is not saying that internal consistency demonstrates the truth of a
worldview, since Clark is clear that axioms of worldviews cannot ultimately be
proved, or else they would not be axioms. Rather, Clark is simply saying that 1) if
a worldview is not internally consistent, then it cannot be true, and 2) the
biblical worldview is internally consistent.
Crampton’s Response
Clark’s View of the Relationship Between God and Logic
Due to the oft-encountered attack mounted against Dr. Clark on his view of logic,
we will briefly overview his teaching on the subject. According to Gordon Clark the
Biblical view of logic is as follows.

The Bible teaches that God is a God of knowledge (1 Samuel 2:3; Romans 16:27).
Being eternally omniscient (Psalm 139:1-6), God is not only the source of His own
knowledge, He is also the source and determiner of all truth. That which is true is
true because God thinks it so. As the Westminster Confession of Faith (1:4)
teaches, God “is truth itself.” And since that which is not rational cannot be true
(1 Timothy 6:20), it follows that God must be rational. The laws of logic are the
way He thinks.

This is what the Bible teaches. God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians
14:33). He is a rational being, the “LORD God of truth” (Psalm 31:5). So much does
the Bible speak of God as the God of logic, that in John 1:1 Jesus Christ is called
the “Logic” of God: “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God,
and the Logos was God” (the English word “logic” is derived from the Greek word
Logos used in this verse). John 1:1 empha-sizes the rationality of God the Son.
Logic is as eternal as God himself because “the Logos is God.” Christ, then, we are
told in the Bible, is the logic (Logos) of God (John 1:1); He is Reason, Wisdom,
and Truth incarnate (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30; Colossians 2:3; John 14:6). The laws
of logic are not created by God or man; they are the way God thinks. And since the
Scriptures are a part of the mind of God (1 Corinthians 2:16), they are God’s
logical thoughts. The Bible expresses the mind of God in a logically coherent
fashion to mankind. Hence, God and logic cannot be separated, because logic is the
characteristic of God’s thinking. Gordon Clark taught that God and logic are one
and the same first principle in this sense, for John wrote that Logic was God.
This will give us a greater understanding of the relationship of logic and
Scripture. Since logic is a characteristic of God, and since Scripture is a part of
“the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16), it follows that Scripture must be
logical. What is said in Scripture is God’s infallible and inerrant thought. It
expresses the mind of God, because God and His Word are one. Hence, as the
Westminster Confession of Faith (1:5) teaches, the Bible is a logically consistent
book: there is “consent of all the parts.” This is why Paul could “reason” with
persons “from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:2). Since Christian theism maintains that
God is truth itself (Psalm 31:5; John 14:6; 1 John 5:6), then truth is logical. In
this sense, logic may be seen as a negative test for truth; that is, if something
is contradictory, it cannot be true (1 Timothy 6:20).

Further, logic is embedded in Scripture. The very first verse of the Bible, “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” necessitates the validity of the
most fundamental law of logic: the law of contradiction (A is not non-A). Genesis
1:1 teaches that God is the Creator of all things. It also declares that He created
“in the beginning.” It does not teach, therefore, that God is not the Creator of
all things, nor does it maintain that God created all things 100 or 1000 years
after the beginning. This verse assumes that the words “God,” “created,”
“beginning,” and so forth, all have definite meanings. It also assumes that they do
not mean certain things. For speech to be intelligible, words must have univocal
meanings. What makes the words meaning-ful, and revelation and communication
possible is that each word conforms to the law of contradiction.

This most fundamental of the laws of logic cannot be proved. For any attempt to
prove the law of contradiction would presuppose the truth of the law and therefore
beg the question. Simply put, it is not possible to reason without using the law of
contradiction. In this sense, the laws of logic are axiomatic. But they are only
axiomatic because they are fixed or embedded in the Word of God.

Also fixed in Scripture are the two other principle laws of logic: the law of
identity (A is A) and the law of the excluded middle (A is either B or non-B). The
former is taught in Exodus 3:14, in the name of God itself: “I AM WHO I AM.” And
the latter is found, for example, in the words of Christ: “He who is not with Me is
against Me” (Luke 11:23).

Since logic is embedded in Scripture, Scripture, rather than logic as an abstract

principle, is selected as the axiomatic starting point of Christian epistemology.
Similarly, we do not make God the axiom, because all of our knowledge of God comes
from Scripture. “God” as an axiom, without Scripture, is merely a name. Scripture,
as the axiom, defines God. This is why the Westminster Confession of Faith begins
with the doctrine of Scripture in Chapter 1. Chapters 2-5, on the doctrine of God,
follow. Clark would agree, then, with Bahnsen, that “Christ [is] the only
foundation for reasoning” (18), and he would do so because the Bible tells us that
He is the Logos, Logic incarnate, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

Clark’s Use of Logic in Apologetics

When it comes to the “difficulties with reliance on logical coherence” (162-174),
Dr. Bahnsen argues that just because a system is logically coherent does not make
it true. Here he is precisely correct. Clark (who taught the subject of logic for
decades at the college level) would fully agree. The stress of Dr. Clark’s position
regarding the logical coherence of the teachings of Scripture, as we have seen, is
very much in line with the Reformed theology taught by the Westminster Confession
of Faith (1:5), which correctly states that there is a “consent of all the parts”
of Scripture. This is Clark’s point. If a system contradicts itself it cannot be
true (1 Timothy 6:20); but just because there is no contradiction does not assure
us that it is true.
Logic in the Clarkian view functions as a negative test for truth. It is an
apologetic tool to show how a contradiction in any system (which all non-believing
systems contain) disproves it as a valid system. Logical coherence is a very valid
way to proof-text a system for its validity or non-validity. The fact that the
Bible is logically consistent does not prove it to be true, but it certainly shows
the non-believer that the Christian worldview is based on a system of truth that is
logically coherent. Gordon Clark’s statement that “the coherence theory [of truth]
(11) cannot be applied with final satisfaction unless one is omniscient” (173) also
bothered Dr. Bahnsen. But Dr. Clark is not asserting that since human beings are
not omniscient they cannot ever be able to use the coherence test on a worldview
system. What he is maintaining is that coherence can be verified even by fallen
men, even though they do err. But the ultimate coherency test must be left in the
hands of the omniscient God of Holy Scripture. That is why we must always depend on
the Word of the all-knowing God who assures us that His Word is perfectly coherent
and is that standard of truth by which all things must be judged.

Does Clark’s Deductive System Lead to Skepticism?

Finally we must mention the fact that Clark’s apologetic, because of its contrived
method of having Christianity escape criticism, itself reduces to skepticism.

Gordon H. Clark. “Clark and His Critics.” Apple Books. 192.

Summary Response
Clark’s View of the Relationship Between Senses and Knowledge
Even though senses do not directory provide us with knowledge, they can still be
means that God uses to give us knowledge.
Humans are born with a priori information. The senses stimulate the mind to
intellectual intuition, or recollection. Knowledge is given by God immediately, by
revelation, and propositionally.
Is Ethics Impossible?
Clark maintains an important distinction between knowledge (capital K, infallibly
revealed Scripture) and opinion (lowercase k, fallible propositions that are still
useful for practical, daily living).
The knowledge (lowercase k) that we use for ethics is not infallible, but we can
still use our best judgment regarding this kind of knowledge for ethics.
Calvin Beisner says this, which is a helpful elaboration upon Crampton’s answer
below.

“Opinion” is the crucial word. Like Plato and Augustine, Clark reserved “knowledge”
for axioms (among which Clark included all the propositions Scripture affirms,
since they are the Word of God) and those propositions logically entailed by them.
Others of our beliefs are “opinions,” of whose truth we may be more or less
persuaded, and on which we can act with more or less confidence, but which don’t
meet the criterion of knowledge (axiom or its implication). All of us live
constantly acting on the assumption that some propositions are true though we can’t
demonstrate them QED from axioms. We shouldn’t have discomfort from realizing that
this marks a sensible distinction between knowledge and opinion.

Calvin Beisner
Crampton’s Response
Clark’s View of the Relationship Between Senses and Knowledge
But he goes on to state that because Clark must use exegetical tools such as books,
archeology, cultural studies, etc. (all of which in some way involve empirical
methodology), to gain knowledge from the Word of God, he therefore refutes his own
conclusions. The result is skepticism.

Here again the author has missed the point of Dr. Clark’s claim. Clark did not deny
that God may use the senses as a “means” for persons to gain knowledge from the
Word of God. What he denied is that the senses themselves are able to provide us
with knowledge. Dr. Clark taught, and correctly so, that all knowledge must come
through propositions (which are either true of false), and since the senses in
interacting with creation yield no propositions, knowledge cannot be conveyed by
sensation. That is, the senses are functional for man in his physical use, but
offer no epistemological avenue for the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge must
always be propositional. When man interacts with God’s creation, which demonstrates
His glory, power, and wisdom, man, as God’s image-bearer, is forced, in some sense,
to “think God.” The visible creation itself does not mediate “knowledge” to man,
for the visible universe sets forth no propositions. Rather, it stimulates the mind
of man to intellectual intuition (or recollection), who as a rational being is
already in possession of apriori, propositional information about God and His
creation. This apriori information is immediately impressed upon man’s
consciousness. The knowledge, then, that man has of God and His creation is derived
neither by empirical nor rationalistic means. Neither is it in any sense mediated
knowledge. Rather, according to Dr. Clark, all knowledge is immediate,
revelational, and propositional. It is the “inward teacher,” Jesus Christ, the
divine Logos, not the senses in one’s interaction with creation, who teaches man.

This is true even with regard to the printed pages of the Bible. All speech or
communication is a matter of words, and words (even those found in Holy Scripture)
are signs, in that they signify something. When signs are used, the recipient, in
order to understand, must already innately know that which is signified. Apart from
this innate knowledge, taught Dr. Clark, signs would be meaningless. Clark asserted
that God’s Word is not black ink on white paper. God’s Word is eternal; the printed
pages of the Bible are not. The letters or words on the printed pages are signs or
symbols which signify the eternal truth which is in the mind of God, and which is
communicated by God directly and immediately to the minds of men in propositional
form.

Is Ethics Impossible?
In this section Dr. Bahnsen also comments that since in the Clarkian view no
knowledge is available outside of Scripture, then we are not able to draw ethical
considerations, such as “You shall not steal.” The reason being, allegedly, is that
the Bible does not specifically tell Dr. Clark that he owns a specific piece of
property which may be stolen (196). The author’s criticism of Dr. Clark here is
easily resolved, however, by recognizing that Clark believed in the view espoused
by the Westminster Confession of Faith (1:6), that it is not only the explicit
propositional statements of the Bible which are true, but whatever may be
implicitly deduced from those explicit statements is also true: “The whole counsel
of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith,
and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary
consequence may be deduced from Scripture.” Therefore, although the Bible does not
tell us explicitly that Gordon Clark owns a certain piece of property, it does
explicitly tell us about property ownership. Therefore, we may deduce from this
explicit statement that Dr. Clark also is able to own property. The problem is
solved in this deduction and is one more demonstration of the importance of the use
of logic in the Christian worldview.
---------------------
Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, and the Transcendental Argument (Presuppositional
Apologetics)
In this post, we’re going to take a look at the difference between Cornelius Van
Til and Gordon Clark concerning the Transcendental Argument, or Proof, for God’s
Existence. I’ve actually already made a video on the Transcendental Argument, and
I’ll leave it up, but my views have changed a little since that video. I have a lot
of respect for Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen, but ultimately, I find Gordon
Clark’s arguments to be more persuasive. Links to the blog posts mentioned in this
video can be found in the description below.

Before we begin, let’s just point out that both Van Til and Clark have apologetic
methods that argue that non-Christian worldviews cannot provide the preconditions
for intelligibility. The difference seems to be whether demonstrating the failure
of non-Christian worldviews should be labeled as a “proof” for Christianity.

Greg Bahnsen, who was probably the most well-known and articulate proponent of Van
Til’s methodology, says that the Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence is a
proof for Christianity. The argument essentially states that Christianity must be
true because of the impossibility of the contrary. In other words, no other
worldview can make rationality, knowledge, and intelligibility possible.

It seems that there have been two approaches to demonstrating the Transcendental
Argument:

The first is to critique and refute particular non-Christian worldviews, or

categories of non-Christian worldviews, such as materialism, dualism, religions
without a personal God, and monotheistic religions that assert the truth of the
Bible, such as Judaism, Islam, and Mormonism. However, there seems to be a problem
with this approach, which is that while all known non-Christian worldviews can be
critiqued and refuted, we simply can’t prove that no non-Christian worldview can
ever arise that might have satisfactory answers to the questions of epistemology,
metaphysics, and morality. However unlikely that possibility might be, the
Transcendental Argument just seems to assert too much.
A second approach, which seeks to solve this problem, is summarized by the author
of reformedapologist dot blogspot dot com, in his article, “Confusion Over The
Transcendental Argument For The Existence Of God.” To defend the premise, “If God
does not exist, then there is no intelligible experience since God is the
precondition of intelligibility,” the author says this: “We can defend the premise
of step 2 deductively by appealing to the absolute authority of Scripture. Of
course, the unbeliever rejects that authority; nonetheless, that the unbeliever is
dysfunctional does not mean that an appeal to Scripture is fallacious! After all,
if a skeptic rejects logic should we then argue apart from logic?”
Similarly, Parker Settecase has a blog post titled, “A Clarkian and A Vantillian
discuss TAG,” and Parker says this: “… but if Christianity is true, and it makes
exclusive claims to truth, then any system that’s opposed to Christianity can’t be
true, right?”

In response, Douglas Douma, who has written a book about Gordon Clark, titled The
Presbyterian Philosopher, said this: “Yes, but then you’re assuming Christianity to
be true (per Clark) rather than proving it (per Van Til). Welcome to the dark side.
:)”

Now let’s talk about Gordon Clark’s apologetic method. Here is a quote from Clark
himself concerning his method:

“The process of the reductio must be explained to him. There are two parts to the
process. First the apologete must show that the axioms of secularism result in
self-contradiction. … Then, second, the apologete must exhibit the internal
consistency of the Christian system. When these two points have been made clear,
the Christian will urge the unbeliever to repudiate the axioms of secularism and
accept God’s revelation. That is, the unbeliever will be asked to change his mind
completely, to repent. This type of apologetic argument … [does not] deny that in
fact repentance comes only as a gift from God” (from Karl Barth’s Theological
Method, page 110.)

Of course, this method is not a strict proof for Christianity. It can only refute
the worldviews that we know about and present a positive case for Christianity. In
response to the criticism that this apologetic method means that Christianity is
only “possibly true,” since it does not rule out the possibility of all possible
non-Christian worldviews, here are two quotes from Douma.
First, in his discussion with Parker, Douma writes, “Clark disliked many of the
ways philosophers used the term probability. I suspect his views there would extend
to the use of “possibility.” I don’t see much value in the term “possibly true.””

Second, in his blog post titled, “Gordon Clark’s Apologetic Methodology,” Douma
writes, “The Scriptures do not seek to prove God’s existence, but always assume
that He IS. And from this basis comes the command “Repent and believe in the
gospel.””

Finally, in Douma’s blog article where he reviews Gary DeMar’s book, Pushing the
Antithesis, The Apologetic Methodology of Greg L. Bahnsen, Douma answers Bahnsen’s
critique concerning merely viewing Christianity as being “superior” to other
worldviews and not as the only possible worldview. Douma writes this:

Though Bahnsen argues for the “impossibility of the contrary” and “not the
superiority of Christianity,” I believe there is another option. That is, not only
is Christianity superior to other worldviews, it is the only known worldview that
is consistent and liveable. And we can only choose from live options. Each non-
Christian worldview must be critiqued individually.

So, although Clark might accept the terms “Dogmatism” and “Fideism” (fi-day-ism) as
describing his position, at the same time, Clark certainly finds much value in
arguing for the truth of the Christian worldview and the failure of non-Christian
worldviews. He just would not say that these arguments rise to the level of
“proof,” as Van Til and Bahnsen might.