Checklist for Presuppositionalism

Greg Bahnsen in his lecture series "Seminary Apologetics" gives a very helpful practical method of doing presuppositional apologetics. Many of you have read so many books about it - Van Til, Bahnsen, other articles, but are left thinking, ok, "now how do I actually do this?" "I know the theory, what does this look like practically?" Of all the limited reading I have done on the subject - approximately 3 or so years, I have not seen anything as helpful as this. So I am inserting it in my blogg. If you come across something else as helpful, let me know. I would love to see it.

Important note - all of this is in the context of Christian love. With the power of this method, we can be like a monkey with a switchblade. We as Peter said should do it "in gentleness and respect (1 Pet 3)" because God is the one who revealed the truth to us. We did not discover and accept out of our own merits or because we are smarter. Hopefully, this will be useful to help unbelievers consider the truth of Christianity by removing the unargued philosophic presumptions in a loving God glorifying manner. We need to imitate God who "wishes all men would come to repentance (2 Pet 3)." Enjoy!!

1. Identify unbeliever's prejudicial conjectures - Look for arbitrariness and inconsistency. Some think they can believe what they want, but when it comes to apologetics they are seeking to be rational to find the objective truth. For example, someone making the statement that the Bible must be corrupted because of all the copying of the manuscripts over so many centuries, passed over so many countries, and now there are so many translations with variations. If you press him further, you will find out that he is resting on so many assumptions he is unable to justify. You will usually find out what under girds this statement is prejudicial conjecture and that the unbeliever really has not done his research and is repeating what he has heard. He does this because he does not like the Christian God, not because he has valid evidence. You have to press him to support his conjectures to see if he really has done his research on it.

2. Identify unargued philosophical bias - Everyone has their presuppositions. We are not against having presuppositions, but against those which are unargued for in nature. Presupposed autonomy can be found in the argument and not realizing they are already begging the question by assuming as philosophical baggage an unargued point of view philosophically.
Philosophical precommitments of the critic are taken for granted. They need to be argued for and supported. For example, "We all know people cannot walk on water." You point out the philosophical assumption and ask them how they know that. "We know people cannot walk on water?" "Explain that to me." "How do you know miracles are impossible?" "Nature operates in a law like fashion. According to ordinary experience, it will not be predicable." "Isn't that the point of miracles, they are extraordinary?"

The unbeliever is trying to suck you into their worldview. He needs to be challenged for its rational foundation. "To say that miracles do not exist, that is an a lot to know." "You know a lot, you are claiming more than you should." If he holds to the finite nature of thinking, can he make the universal statement? He cannot in his own worldview. Someone who is in touch with God can make that claim. Someone who created and controls a world in a law like fashion and told us this, we can have this as a premise. He has presupposed a metaphysic that will not allow things to happen in his worldview that is a part of Christianity. This is to beg the question philosophically. They never argue for the presuppositions in their thinking. They are hostile and antithetical to the Christian worldview.

3. Identify dialectical tensions in the philosophy of the unbeliever - Identify inconsistencies and incoherence of this worldview of the philosophical unargued bias. For example, "All knowledge is perceptual in nature." That cannot be verified by perception. It is self refuting. What they say about reality cannot be known by their epistemology. We have microscopes but we have not perceived electrons, just traces, but we do talk about sub atomic particles which cannot be perceived. "All the world operates this way." " You have observed all the world at all times?" All you can say is in your experience you have never observed a miracle, that does not say that others have not. His worldview forbids him to reason from particular premise and to make a universal statement. Start offering up the philosophical problems. How do you account for free will? Depriving man of purposeful choice? What happens if they do not have free will in their system? Free will is not just a departure from uniformity but a purposeful departure from uniformity. He cannot account for free will then he cannot give ethical advice. "Live for pleasure" becomes his opinion. What if someone says, "kill the weak." How can he refute that given his commitment to a deterministic universe? Given that metaphysic of atoms falling from space why should we debate at all if the atoms are going to determine what we are going to say? We also do not have the freedom to debate if everything follows the laws of physics, biology, and chemistry, that determines the means and the result. How does he know there is no afterlife? These ethical claims reduce to subjective choices that are incoherent.

4. Identify the failure of the unbeliever to provide the preconditions of intelligibility. What are the preconditions of intelligability for us to do science, reasoning, etc? What needs to be possible for these to happen? Place yourself on his worldview and show that it is incoherent as a worldview, then place him on your worldview and show that it is the only on that can give the preconditions of intelligiblity. The Christian view can give the preconditions for science, logic, moral absolutes, human freedom and dignity. Their atheism cannot give an account for objective rationality in man's thinking, freedom, and moral absolutes.

1. Give considerations of two sets of presuppositions - which is the indirect argument.
2. Give illustrations of the faultiness of the unbeliever's worldview with respect to the unbelievers preconditions of intelligibility.

3 basic kinds of worldviews
1. materialistic monistic - the atheist who believes "matter in motion."
2. dualism - material and immaterial universe
3. religious version of philosophy - Pseudo-christian (Jehovah's Witness, Mormonism, 7th Day Adventist, etc.)

Questions for the materialist -
1. Why be rational? If there is no mind, there is no object reasoning.

2. What is the origin of life? I believe life comes from non-life. Biology spontaneous generation cannot be true in his materialistic worldview. The atheist will say I want one exception. "I want one exception to my universal rule." That is what Plato did. "Give me one exception and I can support my claims with mythology." If there is one exception to my universal rule, then it is not a universal rule.

3. Why think in terms of scientific inference? How can you hold to the uniform of nature in a chance universe? All human reason presupposes uniformity. Without uniformity, we could not learn anything. The laws of physics on Monday could be different than the laws of physics on Wednesday. He is presupposing uniformity and cannot account for it given his metaphysic.

4. Why think in general principles? Every one works with classes when reasoning. We do not merely experience each encounter one by one. When we study about ducks, when we look at each particular kind of duck. We have idea of "duckness" when examining each one and comparing universal to particular. If materialism is true, then the experience of one is not like the other. There has to be classes and similarities. Is similarity a particular thing? We also do not encounter classes, laws of logic, and general principles. We encounter that which is perceptive in character. Classes are descriptive, but both are immaterial. Have you ever observed duckness? No, you observe particular ducks. Duckness is inferred and assumed. The atheist is using universals, classes and laws of logic to operate and he cannot account for them in his worldview.

5. Why be moral? In his worldview everything is in flux, what happens happens, there are no absolutes. There are no prescriptions, just descriptions of moment to moment. If there are no prescriptions, there are no ethics. There is no human freedom or dignity where people choose what is right wrong or noble. "What is is." "You can choose laws?" "I thought everything works by laws of chemistry, physics, and biology." "How can you get upset of what Hitler did, if we just choose?" In your worldview there is no obligation to be like you and to care for the weak.

2. Dualism

How do you bring those two together, material and immaterial? How does the laws of logic and the material world go together? Where did the matter come from? Where did the laws come from? Are they both eternal? How did they ever get together? Did matter want to get married to ideas? Does matter have a personality? Ideas and logic brought them together, but they are abstract and not personal at all. Plato said there is a personal demiurge brought them together. There has to be something personal bringing them together. How can you have something with conflicting attributes together in one realm? Matter is particular, ideas are universal, matter is contingent, ideas and laws are universal and necessary. How is that which is universal and necessary somehow in fruitful contact with that which is particular and contingent? Back to Plato who said "I do not know, grant me one exception, all I want is to appeal to mythology once and I can explain everything else."

The only other thing to do is to say that one is more basic than the other. If that is the case, which one is more basic? The laws grew out of the materials? Well, we are back to materialism. How did one give rise to the other? Plato could not account for the soul and the ideas. All he could do is tell a story of mythology.

Conclusions
1. Materialism destroys the preconditions of rationality.

2. The preconditions of rationality are not saved under dualism because it is arbitrary and incoherent.

3. The only other option if you are not going to be a Christian is to have a religious worldview. Then the question becomes by what authority should we do this? If the religion has no claim of authority, it becomes just his arbitrary opinion. We have support for why we believe the Bible has ultimate authority. We do not arbitrarily choose Jesus over Confucius.

Remember we are comparing entire worldviews. We do not do piece meal arguments although we only talk about one thing at a time. We have the whole Christian worldview in mind as we argue point by point. They are all connected. There is no such thing as "brute facts." Facts are connected to the worldview.

All religions can fall under this category:
1. Transcendent mysticism - Hinduism. All is illusion. All is one. This one destroys rationality.
The Hindu claims to deny logic. He as to affirm that which he is denying. You have to presuppose logic to deny logic. If you deny logic you cannot draw distinctions. You cannot deny Christianity, because there is no distinction between the two in his worldview. All is one, remember? Suffering and evil are illusion. Reality transcends our reality and experience. You have to escape to Nirvana says the Buddhist. If all is one and there are no distinctions, how can you escape to Nirvana? In your worldview we are in Nirvana and not at the same time. Point out the internal conflicts within his system.

2. Immanent moralism - This life religions. They are moralistic, lifestyle religions. Be kind, be pure, follow Confucius, Buddha, etc. Why should I? What authority? These result in arbitrary authority, and prejudicial conjecture.

3. Biblical counterfeits - Muslim, Mormonism, Judaism. They affirm the Bible, so you deal with these biblically. They say the Bible is their authority while holding to other authorities that conflict the Bible. Which one is it? Why do you affirm the Bible and hold to things that conflict the Bible?

a. Unitarian counterfeits
b. polytheistic counterfeits
c. pseudo messianic counterfeits


The unbelieving system must explain simultaneous these things.

1. How do you know what you are claiming? What is your theory of knowledge? Require an answer for this over and over again. This is the key question. "How do you know…?" "How do you know…?" "How do you know…?" Because apologetics is about a reason for the hope that is in us.
2. How do you account for logic?
3. How do you account for the demand for rationality?
4. How do you account for scientific inference or the uniformity of nature?
5. Why do you believe in abstract concepts and general principles?
6. Why do you believe in prescriptions and moral absolutes in your worldview?
7. Why do you believe in mental freedom? How do you know the mind is not a weed growing subject to the laws of biology? Why do you believe in freedom to make decisions and consider evidences?
8. Why do you believe in freewill? A body controlled by free will? How does the uniformity of nature and the free will exist?
9. What are your reasons for human dignity? Why? How can you account for it?
10. What is the human uniqueness from animals in your worldview?
11. What is individuality?
12. What is the origin of life?
13. Explain why there is particularity and diversity of experience?
14. What are our limitations and why? Why are we not always able to be logical and moral. Why do we continually fall short of our moral and logical standards? Mistakes, errors of human mind, and sins of human morality? What is the problem? Why do men do not live up to these moral absolutes?
15. Redemption? How do we recover from these limitations and errors of intellectual or moral sort? Every worldview has to account for them or say that we are never going to get beyond them or that we do not have limitations.

These are the preconditions of intelligibility. Every worldview is going to have to solve all these at the same time given their entire worldview without inconsistencies.
This is not just theism. We are standing on our whole worldview. A God who has revealed himself. We are not offering piece meal arguments. My worldview does not destroy logic, does yours?

The last step is to set forth the Christian worldview as the context for our arguments, and preconditions of intelligibility. If the main method is comparison, you have to get something out there to compare it to. Do not assume they have the Christian worldview right, they have it muddled. Tell the old story. I found this book….Jesus wrote me a letter.

Show how the Christian worldview gives the preconditions of intelligibility.

Show how the Christian worldview can account for all the things listed above and limitations and redemption.