Presuppositionalism [1]

The label ‘presuppositionalism’ as an approach to apologetics needs, once and for all, to be laid to rest.  It has served its purpose well, but it is no longer descriptively useful and it offers, now, more confusion than clarity when the subject of apologetics arises.  There are various reasons for this confusion.  For one, there are a variety of ways to understand the notion of presupposition, as well as a variety of ‘presuppositionalists’ whose approaches differ radically – Schaefferians, Carnellians, and Clarkians, just to mention three.  Moreover, there is also the post-Kuhnian predicament in which we find ourselves such that paradigms and presuppositions have come to be equated, and have come into their own, in a way that is destructive of Christianity in general, and of Christian apologetics in particular.  Presuppositionalism has been, thereby, dispossessed of any clear meaning and has died the death of a thousand qualifications.  It is time, therefore, to change the terminology, at least for those who consider the approach of Cornelius Van Til to be consistent with Reformed theology and its creeds.  I propose, in light of the above, that the word ‘covenant,’ properly understood, is a better, more accurate, term to use for a biblical, Reformed apologetic.  I hope in what follows to explain presuppositional apologetics, and in the process to make a case for a terminology switch, a switch to a covenantal apologetic.

In attempting to explain a Reformed approach to apologetics, a covenantal apologetic, as well as to justify the change in terminology, it may be best to begin with the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter VII: Of God's Covenant with Man:

I.               The distance between God and the creature is go great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto Him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of Him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which He has been pleased to express by way of covenant.

It is important to note here that the Confession is concerned to stress, in the first place, and quite apart from the entrance of sin, the distance between God and his creation.  This ‘distance’ is metaphorical; it should not be interpreted to refer primarily to a spatial qualification.  Rather it is an ontological distance, or perhaps better, an ontological distinction, including, at least, both epistemology and ethics, which separates the Creator from his creatures.  There is a great ontological chasm fixed between God and his creatures, and the result of such a chasm is that we, all of humanity, could never have any fruition of God, unless he saw fit, voluntarily (graciously), to condescend to us by way of covenant.  That condescension includes God’s revealing himself, in and through his creation, including his word, to man.  We begin, therefore, ontologically and epistemologically, with a fundamental distinction between the Creator and the creature.  Contrary to some opinions, God is, in fact, totaliter aliter.  But there is nothing intrinsic to such truth that would preclude God from revealing himself to his creatures.  Such revelation, as the exclusive means of knowledge, assumes rather than negates God’s utter ‘otherness.’

In creating man, therefore, God voluntarily determined, at the same time, to establish a relationship with him. [2]   That relationship is properly designated a covenant; it is established unilaterally by God and it places obligations on man with respect to that relationship.  It comes to man by virtue of God’s revelation, both in the world, defined here as every created thing, and in his word.

This has sweeping implications for apologetics.  Given that all men are in covenant relationship to God, they are bound by that relationship to “owe obedience unto him as their Creator.”  That obligation of obedience comes by virtue of our being created – we were created as covenant beings.  We are people who, by nature, have an obligation to worship and serve the Creator.  That much has been true since the beginning.

But something went terribly wrong.  Man fell from his original state and consequently lost the ability to worship and serve the Creator.  The covenant relationship that, prior to the Fall, existed in harmony with the Creator’s will, was, after the Fall, a relationship of animosity and rebellion on our side, and was one of wrath on the side of the Creator.

But there was still a relationship.  It is not the case that man ceased to be a covenant creature after the Fall.  He was still responsible to God to obey and worship him.  He turned this responsibility, however, into occasions for rebellion.  Instead of walking with God in the cool of the day, man began to fight with God, to run from him, to use the abilities and gifts he had been given to attempt to thwart the plan of God and to construe for himself a possible world in which he was not dependent on God at all.

So God provided a way in which the obedience owed him, and the worship due his name, could be accomplished.  He sent his own Son, who obeyed the letter of the law, and who also went to the cross to take the penalty deserved by us all that those who would come to faith in him would be declared to be not guilty before the tribunal of the covenant Judge.  And those who thus put their faith in him, as a part of their obedience to him, may be called on, and thus required, to answer the challenges and questions that come from those who will not bow the knee to Christ (I Peter 3:15f.).

Enter apologetics.  To whom is the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” to be defended?  Given the above, it is to be defended to those who are covenant-breakers, i.e., those whose relationship to God is defined by constant rebellion and denial.  The apostle Paul gives us something of the psychology of these covenant-breakers in Romans, chapters one and two; we can only highlight some of his main points in those chapters.

He begins, first of all (1:18-23), by asserting that the attributes of God have been both clearly seen and understood since the creation of the world. [3]   That is, Paul is telling us here, part of what it means to be created in God’s image is that man inescapably knows God.  It is not simply that he knows that a god exists.  But, says Paul, man, all men, know God (1:19 - dio/ti to\ gnwsto\n tou= qeou), the true God, the God who made all things.  We can say unequivocally, therefore, that by virtue of man’s being created in the image of God, by virtue of man’s being a covenant creature every human being on the face of the earth since creation has an ineradicable knowledge of God – a knowledge that is given through the things that were made, including, of course, everything except God himself.  In order for man to have this ineradicable knowledge, he must know things created, for it is through those things that the revelation comes.  So, in knowing a particular thing, man knows God who reveals himself in and through that thing (including man himself).  Thus, man knows God if and when he knows anything else.  This was in part Calvin’s point in beginning the Institutes as he did.  There can be no separation between the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.  To the extent that we know one truly, we know the other, since the two are inextricably moored.  And since that is true of self-knowledge, by virtue of creation, so is it true of knowledge of anything, since every other thing, too, was created.  So it is that in the act of knowing, to the extent that we know something truly, we know it as created, i.e., as having its origin and its sustaining existence in God.

But Paul introduces a problem in this passage in Romans.  It is not the case that man willingly submits himself to the knowledge of God which comes in and through creation.  On the contrary, God’s wrath is revealed from heaven precisely because man, in knowing God, suppresses (1:18 - katexo/ntwn) the truth of that knowledge in unrighteousness, worshipping and serving the creature, rather than the Creator.  As a covenant creature, man takes his relationship to God, graciously initiated by God’s condescension, and attempts to hold down its truth and the implications of that truth, fabricating for himself idols to take the place of the God whom he knows to exist and to whom he knows he owes worship (Cf. WCF XXI:I,vii).

It is not the case, then, as Aquinas supposed, that the existence of God is not self-evident to us (Cf., Summa Theologica, Q. 2, Art. 1), but rather it is an integral aspect of our covenant relationship with God and can no more be eradicated from our souls than can our souls themselves be annihilated.  The problem is not with the evidence, but with the ‘receptacle,’ (i.e., the sinful person) to which the evidence constantly (through creation) comes.

It is this covenant dynamic of ‘always knowing while suppressing,’ that a Reformed, covenant apologetic seeks to incorporate.  It may be helpful here to elucidate the application of this ‘knowing while suppressing’ principle by attempting to make some distinctions between the metaphysical and the ethical. [4]

Metaphysically, man did not cease to be man after the fall.  There were certain aspects after the fall that were in continuity with the pre-fall situation.  Historically, Reformed theology has sought to maintain that, while all of man was affected by sin, so that we are totally depraved, we still remained people made in his image.  Whatever was essential to being a person prior to the fall was retained after the entrance of sin.  And since one essential aspect of man was his being created in the image of God, that image, at least to some extent, remained after the fall.  We are still, by virtue of our very constitution, covenant creatures, even after the fall; we are still accountable to God and we still owe God unqualified allegiance.  This is true for all people everywhere and at all times, so that the universal metaphysical situation is such that we all live as creatures of God, knowing him, and responsible to him.

Ethically, however, there was radical change.  Whereas Adam and Eve gladly served God in the garden, after the entrance of sin, “all the thoughts and intentions of the heart were only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).  It is no longer the case, to use Augustine’s categories, that man is posse non peccare, as it was before the fall.  Rather, his entire direction is changed; subverted and perverted so that now man is non posse non peccare.  But this depravity, this sinfulness, which extends itself to the entire man, is rebellion in the face of the knowledge of God.  It is covenant sinfulness – before the face, and in the context, of the clear knowledge of God.

After the fall, therefore, given the above, we became, in the truest sense of the word, irrational. [5]   What we now seek to do, and how we seek to live and think, are set in polar opposition to the actual state of affairs.  The ethical is set against the metaphysical; there is an abnormal rift between the two. [6]   Man was, and is, at war with his true identity.  Man, always and everywhere in covenant relationship with God his Creator, seeks the utterly impossible and unobtainable; he seeks autonomy.

If the above is true, then the apologetic task is always, or at least should always be, contextualized within the covenant relationship.  Man’s denial of God is set within the context of Scripture’s analysis of that denial, i.e., it is evidence of the suppression of the knowledge of God within man.  Man’s refusal to acknowledge God is not, as has been supposed, an agnostic refusal, but is a culpable rebellion.  Man is, as Paul clearly states, without excuse.

Given this irrational state, it is incumbent on the apologist to ask the unbeliever to justify his own position, whether it be to living or to thinking or to both.  It is not the case, initially at least, that the apologist should simply accept the unbeliever’s self-diagnosis, as if in his sin he is able and willing accurately to assess his own condition.  Imbedded in the sinful heart is the paradox of self-deception – the steadfast commitment to ‘knowing but suppressing;’ a commitment to deny the true state of affairs, even with regard to one’s own fundamental identity, in order to attempt to assert one’s supposed autonomy.  Given that heart condition, we should not expect that the unbeliever will properly analyze his own state in the world.  He will, at least in principle, seek to suppress the actual situation and set forth the (literally) ‘make-believe’ world that he is working so hard to build.  It will not do then for the apologist simply to start on the yellow brick road with his unbelieving friend and assume that it will lead to Kansas.  Once one begins on a make-believe road, it can only lead to more of the same; one cannot leave the land of Oz by taking a road that is, in its entirety, within Oz.  The only way back to the real world of Kansas is to get off the road altogether and change the mind-set that trusted in the yellow-brick road in the first place.

This is what a covenantal apologetic seeks to do.  It seeks to take the truth of Scripture as the proper diagnosis of the unbelieving condition and challenge the unbeliever to make sense of the world he has made, given that such a world is based on a fundamentally irrational construct.  That is, to put it more philosophically, a covenantal apologetic is transcendental.  Given any fact or experience, it asks the question as to the presuppositions behind that fact, and which make it possible. [7]   It ascertains those covenantal presuppositions in order to challenge them at their root.  In that sense, it is a radical approach.  Two examples should help to illustrate the point, one which is included in another apologetical approach, the other from an actual atheistic challenge.

One of the ways in which the existence of God has been argued is by way of what is called the cosmological argument.  The cosmological argument, roughly, states that for every effect there must be a cause; since there cannot be an infinity of causes, the chain must stop with a First Cause; and this we call God.  Embedded within this argument, often, though not always, is what has been called the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). The principle of sufficient reason was formalized by G. W.  Liebniz in the late 17th century.  According to him, it, along with the law of noncontradiction, was the principle on which reason was founded.  The principle of sufficient reason was meant to provide an explanation for all contingent and factual truths.  Leibniz defined it this way: “It is the principle in virtue of which we judge that no fact can be found true or existent, no judgment veritable, unless there is a sufficient reason why it should be so and not otherwise… (Monadology, 31f.)”. The principle of sufficient reason states, simply, that for every state of affairs, x, that obtains, y must also obtain.  The sufficient reason for y obtaining is x.  If there is no y, there is no x.  And x entails y.  And PSR is thought to be the explanation of all contingent facts, leading up to God.  Reasoning in just this way, however, leads to some serious problems.  The problems stem from an attempt to take PSR as a neutral principle, self-interpretive and self-evident, whether or not God exists.  In that way, it functions in this argument as an ultimate presupposition. 

The problems can be spelled out this way:  Let us take the conjunction of the maximum number of contingencies, call it C, each contingency of which necessitates PSR. [8]   What now is the sufficient reason for C?  We cannot attribute another contingency, C*, to C because C is the maximum number.  Suppose now, parallel with Aquinas, we postulate a god as the sufficient reason for C.  What is the status of this god vis-a-vis C?  You have two options:  In order for the principle of sufficient reason to be a complete explanatory set, he, too, must be a part of C.  But that would mean he or it must be contingent.  And no matter how many contingencies you add to contingencies, you never end up with necessity.  So this is unacceptable.  So, as the argument goes, we now postulate a necessary existence - god (G) - for C.  What now is the relationship of C and G?  On PSR, it is a relationship of entailment.  But that which is necessary cannot entail that which is contingent.  So PSR fails.  It cannot support the weight attributed to it in order to arrive at the conclusion of God's existence.

While it would be difficult to quarrel with the notion that every effect must have a cause, the natural consequence of attempting to apply such an idea universally would necessarily involve the fact that God had to create the universe, and that he was somehow dependent on it.  Such an idea may be suitable to the likes of Clark Pinnock, et al., [9] but orthodox Christianity could not sustain it.  Thus, if what is assumed in this argument is that the unbeliever and the apologist have the principle of sufficient reason in common, then the apologist has begun on the yellow brick road, and the best he can conclude is with an “Oz-bound” wizard.  The principle itself is true enough, but only with regard to creation, not the Creator.

Another example comes from a “transcendental argument for the non-existence of God (TANG)” by Michael Martin. (This discussion can be found in the Autumn 1996 issue of The New Zealand Rationalist and Humanist). In this discussion, Martin does not set out to refute what he calls TAG, the transcendental argument for the existence of God, but he does say that if TANG is sound, TAG is refuted.  On the other hand, if TANG is unsound, then TAG is not automatically sound, because it is possible that both be unsound.  Because Martin is an atheist, he attempts to do explicitly what unbelief is attempting to do generally.  It is beneficial, then, to look at atheism’s claim since it sets out in an explicit way what unbelievers are trying to do implicitly.  Furthermore, perhaps we can gain some clarity about those positions that want to posit the canons of logic as ultimate, or as the presuppositions without which all is meaningless.

Martin begins his discussion in this way:

How might TANG proceed? Consider logic. Logic presupposes that its principles are necessarily true. However, according to the brand of Christianity assumed by TAG, God created everything, including logic; or at least everything, including logic, is dependent on God. But if something is created by or is dependent 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. Moreover, if principles of logic are contingent on God, God could change them. Thus, God could make the law of non-contradiction false; in other words, God could arrange matters so that a proposition and its negation were true at the same time. But this is absurd. How could God arrange matters so that New Zealand is south of China and that New Zealand is not south of it? So, one must conclude that logic is not dependent on God, and, insofar as the Christian world view assumes that logic is so dependent, it is false.

Notice how Martin frames his discussion.  He begins his attack by stating that logic presupposes that its principles are necessarily true.  Now a necessarily true principle is a principle (I suppose he means here to identify a principle with a proposition) that is certifiable on a priori grounds, or on purely logical grounds.  Notice immediately the muddy waters that he enters in asserting this.  Not only is it debatable whether or not there are a priori grounds, but it is also suspicious when logical necessity is grounded solely in terms of logic itself.

Part of what Martin wants to say here is that necessarily true principles are those that are intuitively obvious, such as A is not non-A.  But so far we’ve said very little, except that a symbol is not the opposite of what it is.  Martin then goes on to state the Christian assumption that God created everything, including logic.  He then states that if something is created by God it cannot be necessary. [10]

Notice first the equivocation that has taken place in this discussion.  Martin has moved from a necessarily true principle or proposition to a necessary thing, that is, logic.  This is a minor point, but could confuse the discussion.  In one case, he is talking about the truth of a proposition, which can be measured logically, in another he is talking about a necessary thing, which has more to do with metaphysics and the nature of reality than with logic per se.  Whatever the case, Martin wants to maintain that logic cannot be contingent or in any way dependent on anything.  If logic is dependent then it is possible that it be changed.  And if it is possible that logic be changed, then, as Martin says, “God could make the law of non-contradiction false.”

Now how does a Christian go about formulating a response to such an objection?  There are numerous ways to begin, but we have to begin somewhere so let’s start here:  We should see first of all that Martin’s objection to affirming that logic has its basis in the existence of God itself presupposes that God does not exist.  That is, Martin has not offered here a kind of neutral and universally valid objection to positing a necessary relationship between God and logic.  Rather, the objection itself assumes that the God of Christianity does not exist.  There could be some inherent dangers, then, in responding to his objection in kind.  That is, it could be destructive of Christianity itself if we simply begin where Martin begins in response to his objection.

How does Martin’s objection presuppose his denial of the existence of God?  Remember that his argument for the non-contingency of logic is this:  “…if something is created by or is dependent on God, it is not necessary—it is contingent on God.”  Now we should leave aside the blunder committed by Martin in identifying contingency with dependence, a blunder most logicians would highlight.  But notice the presupposition behind Martin’s statement that if something is created by God it is not necessary.  What kind of necessity is Martin talking about here?  He is talking about an absolute necessity, something which even many secular philosophers reject; an absolute necessity in which logic as a thing must be eternal and immutable.  And if eternal and immutable, (given Martin’s univocal reasoning here, which we cannot delve into at present) then logic must take its place alongside God, in which case God would not be God.  So, he has begun the discussion itself with the presupposition that God does not exist.  And following that yellow brick road can only lead to more of Oz, never to Kansas.  Logic as a necessary thing automatically excludes the Christian conception of God from the debate.  So, it is not the case that Martin’s argument demonstrates that logic cannot have its source in God, but rather the argument itself precludes any notion of God from the outset.  That is, Martin has defined logic in such a way as to deny the Christian God.  There is further evidence of this in his notion that if principles of logic are contingent on God, they are not logically necessary.  Notice again that he defines ‘logically necessary’ as ‘non-contingent on God.’  This, as you can see, is a vicious circle.  Logic cannot be dependent on God because logic is necessary and necessity demands independence, and independence is precluded if God exists.  So far, there is no real argument here, in spite of the pretence, but only assertion.

Then notice his example, an example which takes a mountain of things for granted.  He says that if logic is dependent on God, then God could arrange matters so that New Zealand is south of China and New Zealand is not south of China.  But there are questions here that Martin doesn’t seem to be aware of?  Why is it the case that if something is dependent on God, it must necessarily be such that its essential character is deniable?  On what basis can Martin the atheist make such a statement about a God whom he is convinced does not exist?  Why does dependence on God necessarily leave open a denial of an existent state of affairs?  This is not what Christianity teaches; it may, however, be what Martin believes, but that is exactly the point of contention.

Martin also simply takes for granted that the logic which he is interested in defending has contact with the real world.  This is a problem in the history of philosophy that has not gone away and of which Martin seems to be unaware.  The very problem that logicians face, at least those who are brave enough to face it and who think at all about the philosophy of logic, is just how logic, which is purported to be universal in its scope and immutable in its essential application, can apply itself to even one fact.  The notorious problem in the notion of logic as universal and immutable is how it can get beyond mere symbols to actual facts, because facts change, and there is some indication that most facts change constantly.  So once logic as unchanging touches that which is inherently changeable, how does it keep its universality?

Martin’s example subdues this problem because he speaks of a fact that presupposes a fixed point of reference.  Something being south of something else implies a (relatively) fixed directional point.  But all he has said in that case is that if logic is dependent on God, then God could make it so that New Zealand is located at a particular place and not at that particular place in the same way and at the same time.  This, however, denies the nature of God’s creation and providence and thus excludes again the biblical position at the outset.  So what we have from Martin is a very weak and non-persuasive assertion (not argument) that attempts to declare that logic cannot be dependent on God in an atheistic world view.  And in that, he has stated the obvious.

There are questions, as we noted above, that need to be asked in the context of an atheistic world view if one wants to hold to that world view and also to the absolute necessity of logic as in some sense, at least, demonstrating to us the nature of the world.  The first question to ask is just how, on the basis of the non-Christian world view, one hopes to bring the facts into relation with logic.  How can that which is universal apply to that which is contingent and temporal?  To say, “A is not non A” is all well and good as long as it has no application.  But once it is applied, say, to a tree, what does it mean?  Does it mean that this tree is not that tree?  Does it mean this tree is not that dog?  If it means this tree is not that tree, then how do the two trees relate to each other? 

Or to put it another way, if logic is a way of thinking about the world, and if the world, including our ways of thinking, all came about because of chance, how can we posit a universality to that which has evolved?  Doesn’t the evolution of thinking and the world imply a contingency?  If logic is still held to be eternal in spite of it all, how do we know that when there was no one here to think inferentially?  It seems not to be the case, then, that logic is neutral and inherently unassailable.  Once one posits a universe that has contingency at its very root, how can a universally valid law fit at all?  So, we see again that, beginning from the yellow brick road, one can only circle the land of Oz.  Beginning from the presupposition of the non-existence of God will inevitably conclude with the same.  But such a conclusion only states explicitly what has been implicit all along.  It provides no rationale for the position attempted.  The truth of the matter is that logic, as a part of God’s creation, is, in fact, one of the necessary elements of thinking.  In that Martin’s suppression of the truth is not complete.  But the erroneous construal that he gives to logic in order to attempt consistently or coherently to deny God’s existence, in the end only serves to state in other ways the initial point of contention.  Thus, his argument is neither persuasive nor valid. [11]

The above examples were intended to show just how a covenantal apologetic might argue, from the perspective of the other position itself.  We have tried to show two different attempts at reasoning that are, on their own terms, fallacious.  There is another angle that one could and should take in a covenantal approach. 

There are, of course, in virtually every world view, notions of truth (from the perspective of the Christian world view, of course) that one can and should use persuasively in one’s defense; one biblical example will have to suffice and with this we must close.  The apostle Paul, on Mars Hill in Acts 17, did exactly that as he spoke with the Greek philosophers.  To use just one of the examples, Paul quotes Epimenides’ statement, as a part of his address to the Athenian philosophers, that “in him we live and move and have our being.”  Without elaborating the various debates about this passage in Acts, at least one thing seems obvious.  Paul did not quote the Greek poets here because they had the truth of the matter in their grasp.  Paul is not saying to them that they have understood God, but only need more understanding in order to be more precise.  Rather, Paul, who of all people knows the meaning of  the book of Romans, understood that what these Epicureans and Stoics were attempting to do was to suppress the true knowledge of God that they had.  So, how do they suppress it?  By formulating a true proposition and making it idolatry.  It is certainly the case, Paul is saying, that in the Christian God we all live and move and have our being.  It is not the case, however, that in Zeus we live and move and have our being.  So, we cannot simply take the statement as it is, affirm its truth, and move on.  Rather, with Paul, we can take the statement, affirm its truth only in the context of Christianity, and apply it as a defense of the faith to unbelief.

Thus it is that in each situation, there are elements of truth (again, true in the context of the Christian position) and of suppression.  The principle of sufficient reason is true, but not when God is required to be subjected to it.  Logic is necessary for us to think, but it is not equal to the Creator.  The Athenian philosophers knew Paul was right.  They knew Paul was right because, in spite of their idols, they knew God.  They knew God because he had condescended to reveal himself in and through them and his world. They knew God because they were covenant creatures – covenant breakers, as are all unbelievers.  In all of these examples there is covenant (truth) – breaking (suppression of truth). And so we defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints, what we have come to call the Reformed faith, covenantally, according to the knowledge of God expressed, but perverted (because suppressed).