Evidence, TAG, and Presuppositional Apologetics

From the mailbag:

3. Do you have any recommended resources that could help me better understand how presuppositionalists have responded to the specific criticism of their position?  I’m thinking of questions like these:     –How would presuppositionalism say we are to respond to a Muslim, JW, or other theist?  In the encounters I’ve witnessed, these discussions usually revolve around questions of scriptural interpretation and/or historical fact.  However, is not a Muslim or JW suppressing the truth of God just as much as the ardent atheist (and thus in need of corrected presuppositions)?

- The presuppositionalist’s response (in terms of content) to a Muslim, JW, or other theist probably isn’t going to be much different than a non-presup. The problems with Islam, JW’s, and atheists don’t change no matter who is arguing with them. The difference, however, will be in the form and presentation – we shouldn’t do it from a position of religious neutrality (i.e. “hello Mr. Mormon, let’s just set aside all our beliefs and look at some facts of history”); we should never at any point abandon our presuppositional commitment to the authority of the Scriptures, the existence of the Triune God, and the Lordship of Christ over all things – because if we do that “for the sake of argument,” we’ve lost the argument! We’ve given everything up right from the get go, and if we do that, why shouldn’t the unbeliever?

I mean, if an atheist wants to talk and says, “Ok, Ok, but just set aside your theism for a second because I don’t believe that,” your response should be, “well, then why don’t you set aside your atheism for a second because I don’t believe that either. If I have to disbelieve in God for a few minutes to find the truth, why don’t you believe in God and do the same – only for your whole life?” In other words, there’s no reason to give up your primary commitment – which is the gospel, for the gospel is the very power to change lives. If we suspend that for a second, we’ve lost, the unbeliever continues to be lost, and we get nowhere.

So, in many ways, I’m saying to be careful not to read too much into presuppositionalism. Broadly speaking, it just asserts that A) the real battle is at the level of worldview (presuppositions), and you can’t give the unbeliever one square inch of their own ground for arguing, because they have no right ethically or philosophically for doing so, B) evidence must be presented, not excluded, but presented not in a way that puts the unbeliever in the position as a neutral or morally right judge, or that assumes that the believer is standing on a religiously neutral position either.
I love Lee Strobel’s Case for Christ, and I’m looking forward to Dr. Groothuis’ massive book What Matters Most containing dozens of evidential and philosophical arguments for the Christian worldview, and I’ll recommend both of them to people – depending on the circumstances. But you’ll never hear me say “this is what my faith is based on. If these guys are all wrong, I’m all wrong, and I’m leaving my faith.”
That isn’t to say arguments have no place in the cognitive element of faith. The validity of the Christian faith is dependent upon historical fact (Jesus died and rose again), and if it can be demonstrated that these events and persons did not take place and do not exist, I would renounce my faith, and you should too. Our faith as Colossians 2 presuppositionally-committed Christians is not a blind leap (which evidentialists and cumulative case apologists still can’t get a grip on – see Craig, Habermas, etc. in Five Views on Apologetics). Furthermore, without any arguments or reasons at all for believing, our faith would indeed be fideistic, which is why Greg Bahnsen rightly said in his 1985 debate with Stein:

“Will I relinquish my belief in God? If there were no arguments for the existence of God, I wouldn’t believe in God.”

It’s terribly easy to quote Bahnsen out of context here. Notice that Bahnsen doesn’t say “if my transcendental argument were proven false I would not believe in God,” but rather, “if there were no arguments for the existence of God, I wouldn’t believe in God.” Bahnsen is not saying his belief in God is dependent purely upon one argument or another. He’s simply saying that he believes for reasons. His faith in God is not a leap in the dark. If there are no reasons to believe, no one should believe. Traditional/classical and presuppositional apologetics fully agree on that point.

So, that’s some of the broad assertions of presuppositional thinking. It seeks to pull out the rug from underneath unbelieving worldviews. It never ignores evidence, but always implements it in certain contexts. And when a Christian does present evidence and engages in conversation, he must never grant any presuppositions that the unbeliever has, because if he does, there’s no reason he’s going to buy the evidence. Van Til said:

“Historical apologetics is absolutely necessary and indispensable to point out that Christ arose from the grave etc. But as long as historical apologetics works on a supposedly neutral basis, it defeats its own purpose. For in that case it virtually grants the validity of the metaphysical assumptions of the unbeliever.”

Presuppositionalism is much more than TAG (Transcendental Argument for God’s existence). While it does give the transcendental argument more attention than the historic norm (see why it doesn’t work for Islam here), it doesn’t depend upon TAG for every critique of every worldview.
Nothing about presuppositional apologetics prevents us from using evidence or from critiquing other worldviews and their internal consistency. It’s quite normal and logical to leave TAG (although not presuppositional thinking) aside when discussing the textual and historical problems of Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, etc. For material on that more generic apologetics, I’d simply refer you to this section of the Recommended Reading list. In short, there isn’t a massive need for a “presuppositional book of evidences and arguments” for the Christian worldview (although, for many of those books, like Kreeft’s Handbook of Christian Apologetics – which I actually do not recommend – it definitely needs a chapter on apologetic method).

–How do presuppositionalists handle Biblical passages in which evidence is used as a means of convincing others?  Some examples include Jesus’s miracles and the many places where eyewitness testimony is mentioned by the Biblical writers.

- Again, presenting evidence is never the problem. It’s giving the unbeliever too much in the process. We also need to realize that if we are going to develop a biblical method of doing apologetics, we must take into consideration all of Scripture’s teaching regarding that subject, and not simply the immediate response of the 1st century church in narratives.
That is, there’s nothing wrong with saying “look! The early church and biblical writers used evidences for the gospel and apologetics!” but its wrong to stop there, because to do true systematic theology regarding apologetics for us today, we must include all of Scripture’s teachings. We have to look at all of Paul’s writings, his journeys and speeches (Acts 17; see Bahnsen’s exegesis of this in the back of Always Ready), his teaching regarding the sinfulness of man (I Cor 2:14-15) and maintaining a presuppositionally-committed mind (Col 2:8). And my conviction, as is Wilson, White, Cook, and others, is that when a person does such a wholly biblical apologetic method, the result is presuppositional apologetics.

Essentially, Chris, you’ve touched upon one of the most common misunderstandings of presuppositional apologetics. We don’t approach the unbeliever thinking “now, I can’t use any evidences, except maybe TAG and some others…”, but approach thinking, “I can use all good evidence and arguments, but I must realize it will never suffice for this person if he never realizes that he’s blind, pre-committed to unbelief, and desperately in need of a Savior.” The place of evidence comes not first, but later. It comes after the unbeliever realizes that he’s a creature, and as long as he’s setting standards before God, he will always win, always be a non-Christian, and always care less about these Christian apologist’s evidence.

Classical apologetics is extremely poor while presuppositional apologetics is a master at doing just that: exposing the irrationality of unbelief and paving the way for the reception of the gospel. I can think of any better examples than Gene Cook Jr.’s debate with Derek Sansone and James White’s debate with Dan Barker.
Gene crafted his words so carefully as a presuppositionalist, that he got Sansone to say, in essence, “I will only believe in Jesus if he comes down to earth 24/7, 365 days a year and says “I wrote the Bible”.” How absurd! Even by the atheist’s standards! Derek doesn’t require that for any other author or person in history, so why would he be bent on disbelieving Jesus Christ more than anything else?
It’s because he doesn’t want to. He’s committed to his unbelief; there are no good reasons for it, but he’s an atheist anyway. He is 100% “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness,” and the vast majority of the audience saw it. They saw the monster, the dirty pride, the utter darkness of unbelief in full view.

James White also exposed the irrationality of unbelief with his debate with Dan Barker. Much like Gene Cook Jr., James asked the right questions and revealed the beast, and Barker ended up having to say, in essence, that 2+2=4 only when there is a person to believe it. 2+2 might = 6 or 7 after I die, because all experience and the laws of logic are dependent upon the physical brain. How absurd! For someone as intelligent as Barker who composed over 200 piano songs…again, he’s not rejecting Christianity because it doesn’t make sense, he’s rejecting Christianity because he doesn’t want it, he doesn’t want to have to deal with a Creator.

This hardly ever happens with cumulative case or evidential apologetics. Just check out the debates. Everything always comes down to some fact, some equation, or some disagreement between scholarly sources, and the audience (as a whole, not just Christians) goes away thinking “man those guys are so smart,” but rarely, “wow! I can’t believe how absurd it is not to be a Christian and to be a skeptic!”).
But when Christians realize (over a century late) that if the battle is to be won it must be fought on the level of principles (Kuyper), the darkness can’t hide. It must face the light because that is precisely what we are presenting: the gospel of Jesus Christ, total, complete, and powerful. The ontological and kalam cosmological argument speaks to about .5% of the unbelieving population, and it is compelling to about .5% of that .5%. And this is somehow supposed to be more compelling than the gospel rightly handled, TAG, evidences and facts presented within a Christian framework?

Ok, it’s a tangent. But we just have to realize that the default position is pro-evidence for the presuppositional apologist, not anti-evidence. If you have specific concerns regarding miracles or the resurrection, we could talk about that later. But, again, apologetic method for us today is based on the entirety of Scripture, not just the pattern of the disciples in doing evangelism,etc.

Hopefully that helps, but  The Portable Presuppositionalist has sufficiently addressed a lot of these concerns.

gotta run
jamin