A Brief Response to Richard Howe on Presuppositionalism

As most of you know, RealApologetics.org has (at least) three distinguishing marks that set it apart from other apologetics organizations: it is not dispensational in its approach to general theology and hermeneutics (but loosely “covenantal”), it is not evidential or classical in its method of apologetics (but presuppositional, in the line of Van Til and Bahnsen), and it is not Arminian in its soteriology (but Reformed, adhering to the 5 Solas and 5 points of Calvinism). Countless volumes have been written that demonstrate why these distinctions matter. Among them, is my book The Portable Presuppositionalist, which demonstrates the historical and contemporary superiority of a truly presuppositional, fully-committed apologetic methodology.

Dr. Richard Howe, Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics and Director of the Ph.D. program at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, NC, wrote an essay entitled “Some Brief Critical Thoughts of Presuppositionalism” which is comprised of excerpts of his doctoral dissertation A Defense of Thomas Aquinas’ Second Way. He makes a few concise objections to presuppositional apologetics. What follows is a brief response to those objections.

(Note: If you are unfamiliar with the Transcendental Argument for God’s existence, click here).

TAG is About the Necessity of God, not the Necessity of Logic

“…Acknowledging the difference between ‘being the case’ and ‘not being the case’ demonstrates the antecendent truth and unavoidability of the logical law of non-contradiction. If the law of non-contradiction is not so, then there could be no distinction between ‘being the case’ and ‘not being the case.’ Since logic is necessary even to argue against logic itself, this shows that logic is transcendentally necessary. But somehow, Van Til thinks that this is the case with a full-blown Trinitarian Christian theism. While it is clear to me how logic is transcendentally necessary for there to be an argument against God, it is not clear to me how God is transcendentally necessary for there to be an argument against God.” – Howe, 5

The point of emphasis in Howe’s summary is incorrect. He seems to be confusing presuppositionalists argument from logic and his own, Aquinian/classical argument regarding logic.

Classical and evidentialist apologists like Sproul, Craig, Zacharias, and others have frequently talked about the utter necessity of the laws of logic for all rationality (i.e. first chapters in Sproul’s Defending Your Faith, and Zacharias sermon example of his discussion with the Indian who said “logic is Western…we use a ‘both hands’ system’,” etc.). That is, you can’t conclude anything, you can’t assert or have any type of predication without the laws of logic – because to try and disprove the laws of logic would require their validity.

Every Christian apologist on the planet agrees with this. That’s not the issue. The issue is A) where to go from there, and B) is this really Bahnsen and Van Til’s focus with the transcendental argument?

Regarding A: Classical apologists use this argument to simply say, “listen, we need logic to get anywhere, and once we’ve established that, we can use logic to arrive at the truth of the Christian worldview.” (Presuppositionalists respond to that line of reasoning and say, “no, neutral reasoning with the laws of logic is impossible because of our presuppositions, which are either directed towards the Creator or away from the Creator. We must deal with issues of presupposition before using logic.” Presups also assert that logic is not self-sufficient, but God is, and therefore He is our final reference point for all predication, knowledge, etc.)

Regarding B: That answer is no. This argument for the necessity of the laws of logic has nothing to do with the transcendental argument of God which is distinctive of presuppositional apologetics.

In other words, Howe is completely missing the boat. He frames his objection as if Van Til and Bahnsen are saying the argument for the necessity of logic leads us to the necessity of the Creator. That has never, ever been their argument for the necessity of God’s existence. It seems as though Howe can’t think outside classical reasoning (this shouldn’t be a surprise, this all takes place in the context of a dissertation that defends Aquinas’ reasoning) to quite get a grasp on what he’s objecting to.  It’s very similar to the way Sproul misrepresented presuppositionalist apologetics in his 1984 classic Classical Apologetics, where he simply wrote off presuppositionalism as fideism because it didn’t fit his (the traditional) paradigm of what constituted an “argument.”

Here’s reality: Van Til and Bahnsen use logic merely as an example – albeit a popular one – of something that opens the door (and actually demands) God’s existence.  The atheist cannot account for logic because he cannot account for abstract, metaphysical universals that are binding on all men. God, who is likewise non-material, universal, and binding on all men (but in a much more exhaustive way) gives the ontological foundation for logic. That’s the point. TAG has nothing to do with the necessity of logic for rationality; it has to do with the necessity of God, which gives room for rationality. A quick scan of the primary sources (i.e. Bahnsen’s debate with Stein) would reveal this fact.

A quick quote from Farinaccio:

Reasoning necessarily presupposes certain laws of logic that govern right from wrong thinking. Such laws would have to be immaterial, universally binding, and unchanging. Some philosophers have tried to argue that there really are no “laws” of logic per se. Instead, they suggest logic is merely a descriptive term for a set of rules established by either language or social constructs. But this explanation hardly provides a foundation for what we call logic. Faith With Reason, 26

And Van Til:

To talk about what can or cannot exist according to logic is but to swing a sword in the sky unless it is first determined at what point logic meets reality. According to the Christian story, logic, and reality meet first of all in the mind and being of God. The Defense of the Faith, 303

The law of contradiction cannot be thought of as operating anywhere except against the background of the nature of God. Since, therefore, God created this world, it would be impossible that this created world should ever furnish an element of reality on par with him. Introduction to Systematic Theology, 32

Common Misunderstandings Repeated

On page 6, Howe commits the “Unbelievers Can’t Know Anything According to Van Til [false], but They Do, Therefore Van Til is Wrong” fallacy. Refer to 102-103 in The Portable Presuppositionalist, Bahnsen’s works, etc. On page 8 he puts a new spin on the “Starting Point: Proximate or Ultimate, etc.” fallacy, but doesn’t seem to pull it off:

“For Van Til to summarily reject rational argument as a viable source to discover God seems tacitly to say that there is a part of reality, viz. human reason that is independent on God. Last, and perhaps most serious…” – Howe, 8.

The problem here is easy to spot: Howe never explains why Van Til rejected “rational argument as a viable source to discover God.” He doesn’t deal with any scriptural texts (i.e. I Cor. 2:12-16, Rom 1) regarding unbelievers’ (inner knowledge of God but) futile attempts of arriving at sound theology through reason. Of course, he doesn’t make any distinction at all in this context between unbelievers and believers’ epistemology, which permeates Van Til’s thought. The question is not “What’s missing?” in Howe’s analysis; the question is rather, “What’s not missing?”

Bahnsen said What?!?

“Last, and perhaps most serious, while Bahnsen asserts that the laws of logic can be known to be valid only if one presupposes the Christian world view, he goes on to use the laws of logic in his attempt to demonstrate that this is the case.” Howe, 8

Unfortunately, like the last several objections, Howe provides no citations of the view he is critiquing. This most likely explains why Howe fails to represent Bahnsen and presuppositionalism.

Bahnsen does not assert that “logic can be known to be valid only if one presupposes the Christian world view.”  I challenge Professor Howe to substantiate this claim. What Bahnsen does assert is that logic cannot be legitimately known unless one presupposes the Christian worldview. In other words, unbelievers know the laws of logic and they use them (where on earth did Bahnsen deny that?), but they have no basis for doing so. They need God to give them an explanation for logic. Without God, they may know logic and use logic, but they have no good reason for doing so. That’s the presuppositionalist assertion in all the primary sources. That’s the point of using logic in TAG. That’s exactly what Bahnsen did in his debate with Stein.

“Bahnsen has already argued that the laws of logic cannot be known to be valid unless Christianity is presupposed.” – Howe, 9

Again, this is completely false. What Bahnsen is Dr. Howe reading? Bahnsen never said any such thing. He never said logic and the laws of logic cannot be known unless Christianity is presupposed. In fact, on page 16-17 of his book Presuppositional Apologetics, Bahnsen said the opposite of Howe’s claim:

Because fallen man cannot escape the knowledge of God he is still able to acquire knowledge through his contact with general revelation in the world; as a creature of God he retains an irradicable knowledge of his Creator, knowledge of himself always bringing knowledge of his God as well…the unbeliever…can and does use his mind to know things; he is able to do so despite of what he thinks about his epistemological situation.

And on page 38:

…the unbeliever has a great deal of knowledge about the world in spite of the fact that his unbelieving  presuppositions are incapable of leading to, or theoretically grounding, knowledge and truth.

It is clear that Dr. Howe is either confusing Bahnsen for someone else, or just making stuff up. Moving on…

“…the only thing that a transcendental method gives us epistemologically is the transcendental necessity of logic, not a full-blown Christian Trinitarian theism.” Howe, 10

This assertion is entirely unsubstantiated and foreign to presuppositionalist literature – at least that of Van Til and Bahnsen. Even if it was, Trinitarian Christian theism is necessary by the nature of reality itself, as I have partially argued in previous writings.

An Interesting Conclusion

Howe concludes his essay:

“It is unfortunate for [presuppositionalist's] position that they so explicitly repudiate the Classical approach to apologetics but when it come time to actually do apologetics, they can only resort to the Classical model. But I am nevertheless happy that they do so. Welcome aboard!” – Howe, 11

This is a kind gesture…I suppose. It kind of reminds me of the way R.C. Sproul ended his book Classical Apologetics:

“The Emperor of the Land of Presuppositionalism where Van Til, Frame…has no clothes. Van Til is embarrassed. Frame is more embarrassed and is always trying to pin something on the Emperor’s bare skin…Classical apologetics, with its horror of circularity, is the little child who embarrasses everybody by pointing out the obvious.” – Sproul, 338.

Fortunately, Howe didn’t stoop this low, or low enough to commit the “but presuppositionalism is circular!” fallacy. Although, he does seem to think presuppositionalism, despite its success in the public square (in both debates, such as White vs. Barker, Bahnsen vs. Stein, etc., and in publications), doesn’t have anything unique to offer.

I beg to differ.

For Further Reference

I can only recommend that a person read the primary sources and see the real story. Van Til’s most important (and enjoyable) work, in my opinion, is his Introduction to Systematic Theology. I’d then check out his A Theory of Christian Knowledge, Defense of the Faith, and Christian Apologetics. Christian philosophy never tasted so good. And I’m talking about the real stuff, not the “well I’m a Christian and I do philosophy but don’t really care to see how my theology affects absolutely everything about my thought processes” junk that so commonly attracts today’s Christian community. I’m talking about a love of wisdom that bases its entire direction upon the revealed Word of God and refuses to back down when it comes time for theology to drive the direction of philosophy. Baxter had it right:

“I shall presume to tell you, by the way, that it is a grand error, and a dangerous consequence in Christian academies…that they study the creature before the Redeemer, and set themselves to physics, and metaphysics, and mathematics before they set themselves to theology; whereas no man that hath not the vitals of theology is capable of going beyond a fool in philosophy. Theology must lay the foundation, and lead the way of all our studies.” Reformed Pastor, 58

And if you’re new to the subject or just need lighter reading, check out Bahnsen’s Pushing the Antithesis and Farinaccio’s Faith With Reason. For an organized compilation of quotes and my own scholarship on this subject, see The Portable Presuppositionalist. There’s also a fabulous essay in Frame’s volume Speaking the Truth in Love by Dan Collet on how TAG really is an indirect, valid argument and not just a spin off of modus ponens, reductio ad absurdum, or any other formal logical argument.

Of course, Bahnsen’s Always Ready is still the single best volume on Christian apologetics. Sigh. I wish it was in hardback.