Why Philosophical Theology Fails

(This post appeared on Luke's CommonSenseAtheism blog on Friday Aug. 6).


Historically, many Christians have believed that philosophy and theology are enemies. Tertullian's (160-220 CE) famous question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?," is emblematic of this viewpoint. Tertullian, of course, was actually going back to Paul's statement in Colossians 2:8 in which he warned the Christians to be leery of philosophy. Tertullian's full statement reads:

From all these, when the apostle would restrain us, he expressly names philosophy as that which he would have us be on our guard against. Writing to the Colossians, he says, “See that no one beguile you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, and contrary to the wisdom of the Holy Ghost.” He had been at Athens, and had in his interviews (with its philosophers) become acquainted with that human wisdom which pretends to know the truth, whilst it only corrupts it, and is itself divided into its own manifold heresies, by the variety of its mutually repugnant sects. What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from “the porch of Solomon,” who had himself taught that “the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart.” Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! (1)

However, in the 1970's a renaissance of interest in utilizing philosophy to better understand theology developed. Whereas philosophy had largely limited itself to basic questions such as the ones discussed in Philosophy of Religion classes, this new breed of Christian philosopher was interested in "making sense" of classic Christian doctrines, such as "Original Sin," the Incarnation and the Atonement. Oliver Crisp explains:

In the 1970's and early 1980's Christian philosophers in the analytic tradition began to turn their attention to making sense of particular Christian doctrines, instead of restricting themselves to the more general topics that fall under the generic 'rubric' 'classical theism,' such as the concept of God, arguments for the existence of God and the problem of evil.(2)

Of course, this attempt to explain theology using the structures and methods of philosophical analysis was not new. It characterized many of the medieval theologians such as Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, as well as later Protestant theologians such as Jonathan Edwards. However, after Kant, many theologians had given up on utilizing philosophy. Philosophers, post-Kant, had been skeptical of talking about theology since they were not sure that we could really know anything beyond our experience. Crisp writes:

[T]hose thinkers whose point of departure is Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy, eschew large metaphysical schemes of thought because (following Kant) they are deeply skeptical that any such schemes are possible. All we can conceive of in our theology and philosophy is that which is phenomenal, a part of this world of sensation in which we live, not the realm of the noumenal, the eternal and unchanging, that is forever beyond us.(3)

Another problem for theologians who wanted to utilize philosophy was "logical positivism" (4) which dominated the first half of the 20th century. Logical positivists maintained that all "God-talk" was meaningless since it could not be verified empirically. When it fell out of favor in the 1960's, the soil became fertile again for the rise of philosophical theology and philosophical apologetics. In 1967, Alvin Plantinga wrote his first volume, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God, which laid the epistemological foundation for the resurgence of serious philosophical discussion of theological matters. In 1974, the Evangelical Philosophical Society (5) was founded and in 1978, the Society of Christian Philosophers (6).

This re-birth of "Christian philosophy" also corresponds to the renaissance of evangelical Christian apologetics. In 1976, Norman Geisler, a Christian philosopher in the Thomist tradition (Ph.D. Loyola University) published his first apologetic work entitled, Christian Apologetics, and Gordon Lewis published, Testing Christianity's Truth Claims. In 1981, William Lane Craig published his first apologetic work entitled, The Son Rises and in 1984, Reasonable Faith. It was now acceptable for conservative Christians to make use of philosophical arguments in defense of the faith.

However, not all conservative Christians were receptive to this new marriage between philosophy and theology. Some Reformed theologians, especially those of the presuppositional school, were leery. That is because they saw philosophy as man's reason usurping authority over sacred writ. In other words, philosophical theologians make it their goal to "make sense" out of Christian doctrines. They want to explain how such doctrines as original sin, the atonement, the resurrection, and so on, can be understood and explained philosophically. Philosophical theologians begin with the assumption that man is created in the image of God and is endowed with certain rational and moral sensibilities which make him able to "think God's thoughts after him." Reformed theologians, on the other hand , have typically held that not only is man's heart fallen but his head is fallen as well. In contrast to Aquinas, they have held that the image of God in man is so twisted and deformed that the unregenerate man can no longer "think God's thoughts after him." Man's intellect is fallen as much as his will is fallen. Therefore, they believe that is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 that the preaching of the cross was foolishness to the Greeks (i.e, the philosophical crowd). The Reformed would say that not only is it a waste of time to try to justify God's ways to unregenerate man but, that more seriously, it exalts human reason to the place of ultimate authority. Philosophical theologians, in their opinion, are guilty of judging and evaluating doctrine based not on whether its exegetically based in the Scripture but on the grounds of whether it makes sense logically and whether it is in tune with man's moral intuitions. Thus, they view philosophical theology with great suspicion as having reformulated doctrine into a form that will be palatable to the unregenerate mind. In J. I. Packer's words, they have surrendered the home field advantage of Scripture to play on their enemies' field, reason (7).

According to Greg Bahnsen:

The Christian does not look at the evidence impartially, standing on neutral ground with the unbeliever, waiting to see if the evidence warrants trust in God's truthfulness or not. Rather, he begins by submitting to the truth of God, preferring to view every man as a liar if he contradicts God's word (cf. Rom. 3:4). . . . By trying to build up a proof of the resurrection from unbiased grounds the Christian allows his witness to be absorbed into a pagan framework and reduces the antithesis between himself and the skeptic to a matter of a few particulars.(8)

I have to agree with the Reformed presuppositionalists. It is not possible to explain rationally the doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation, and the Atonement. These doctrines, as well as other Christian doctrines, are filled with internal contradictions and inconsistencies. One would reject them as irrational, unless one had first presupposed that the Bible is a divine revelation and must be believed even if it doesn't "make sense." The problem, with presupposing the truth of the Bible is, of course, that it is merely "begging the question." One has decided in advance that the Bible is true and will interpret all evidence to agree with that presupposition. For that reason, William Craig, a philosophical theologian and apologist, rejects presuppositionalism. He writes:

Where presuppositionalism muddies the waters is in its apologetic methodology. As commonly understood, presuppositionalism is guilty of a logical howler: it commits the informal fallacy of "petitio principii," or begging the question, for its advocates presupposing the truth of Christian theism in order to prove Christian theism. (9)

In reality, though, Craig does the same thing as the presuppositionalists. While he pretends to be concerned about evidence and reason, he acknowledges that at the end of the day, he "knows" Christianity is true because of a subjective religious experience which he calls the "witness of the Spirit" (see here).

So, Philosophical Theology fails in my opinion because it is impossible to “make sense” of Christian doctrines such as the atonement, the incarnation, the Trinity, and so on. One believes these doctrines because of an appeal to religious experience or religious authority not because of evidence or reason and when one tries to employ reason to understand the doctrines, the attempt fails. Thus, I decided to reject Evangelical Christianity. Its doctrines can only be believed by sacrificing reason. If there really is a god(s), it doesn't seem that he/she/it would require one to go against reason. I could accept the idea that revelation from a divine source might transcend reason but I cannot accept the idea that it would contradict reason (10).

ENDNOTES

(1)On the Prescription of Heretics, ch. 7.

(2) A Reader in Contemporary Philosophical Theology (2009), p. 1. Alvin Plantinga defines Philosophical Theology as a matter of thinking about central doctrines of the Christian faith from a philosophical perspective; it is a matter of employing the resources of philosophy to deepen our grasp and understanding of them ("Christian Philosophy at the End of the Twentieth Century," in James F. Sennett (ed), The Analytic Theist, An Alvin Plantinga Reader (1998), p. 340.

(3)Crisp, p. 4; also see Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Is it Possible and Desirable for Theologians to Recover from Kant," in Modern Theology 14 [1998]: 1-18.

(4)Logical positivism is a philosophical doctrine formulated in Vienna in the 1920s, according to which scientific knowledge is the only kind of factual knowledge and all traditional metaphysical doctrines are to be rejected as meaningless. "Logical Positivism," Encyclopedia Brittanica (2010).

(5) According to the Vision Statement on their website, The Evangelical Philosophical Society (EPS) is a professional society of Christian philosophers who are committed to a high view of biblical authority and who believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true, intellectually persuasive, and rationally defensible in the marketplace of ideas. Past presidents of the society have included: Norman Geisler, Gordon Lewis, Paul Feinberg, John Jefferson Davis, and Gary Habermas. The Journal for the Society is called: Philosophia Christi.

(6) According to their website, the purpose of the Society of Christian Philosophers is to promote fellowship among Christian Philosophers and to stimulate study and discussion of issues which arise from their Christian and philosophical commitments. William Alston, Robert Merrihew Adams, Alvin Plantinga, Marilyn McCord Adams, George Mavrodes, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Eleonore Stump, and C. Stephen Evans are among the past Presidents of the Society. Their journal is entitled: Faith and Philosophy.

(7)The Logic of Penal Substitution (1974).

(8) Greg Bahnsen, The Impropriety of Evidentially Arguing for the Resurrection (1972).

(9) Five Views on Apologetics, ed. Steven Cowan (2000), p. 217.

(10) What I mean by “transcend reason” is that it is not fully comprehensible. However, if what is comprehensible in the revelation contradicts reason, then I don’t see how it can be true.

How Does a Believer Know the Bible is the Word of God?

I have often made the claim that evangelical Christians believe things in the Bible that they would reject in other ancient literature due to their prior faith commitment to the Bible as the Word of God. Christians typically do not come to believe because of evidence and arguments. They come to believe for a number of emotional, psychological and social reasons. Once they have made this commitment and especially if they have some religious experience connected with it, no amount of reason or evidence will convince them they are wrong. I have been criticized by some who say that their belief in the Bible is not due to a "faith commitment." But listen to what John Calvin taught:

Let it therefore be held as fixed, that those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit acquiesce implicitly in Scripture; that Scripture carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit. Enlightened by him, we no longer believe, either on our own judgement or that of others, that the Scriptures are from God; but, in a way superior to human judgement, feel perfectly assured—as much so as if we beheld the divine image visibly impressed on it -that it came to us, by the instrumentality of men, from the very mouth of God. We ask not for proofs or probabilities on which to rest our judgement, but we subject our intellect and judgement to it as too transcendent for us to estimate. This, however, we do, not in the manner in which some are wont to fasten on an unknown object, which, as soon as known, displeases, but because we have a thorough conviction that, in holding it, we hold unassailable truth; not like miserable men, whose minds are enslaved by superstition, but because we feel a divine energy living and breathing in it—an energy by which we are drawn and animated to obey it, willingly indeed, and knowingly, but more vividly and effectually than could be done by human will or knowledge. (Institutes, 1.7.5)

While not all evangelical Christians may believe just because of some faith commitment or religious experience, I think the majority do. Once one has made this commitment then he or she will be determined to defend whatever is in the Bible. Even if they can't defend it, they will still believe, because the Spirit told them its true. One of the leading Christian apologists, William Lane Craig, admits as much.

Fideism

A fideist chooses to believe in god(s) but admits that the belief defies reason. Some well known Christian fideists would include Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), and Karl Barth (1886–1968).

I recently came across another Christian fideist, M. Holmes Hartshorne. He was Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Colgate University. He earned a Doctor of Theology from Union Theological Seminary under Paul Tillich. Hartshorne wrote a book entitled, The Faith to Doubt: A Protestant Response to Criticism of Religion (1963). Earlier he wrote an article in Theology Today (v. 13, no. 1 [April 1956], 63-71) entitled, "Faith Without Doubt is Dead." In the article he maintains that any honest Christian, unless in total isolation from the real world, will doubt his faith. He states:

Moreover it is fatuous to suppose that because a man is a Christian he is insulated from his world's fate. On the contrary, for us also the anxiety of contemporary doubt is present. Many a sincere Christian has knelt to pray only to watch his prayer fall limp to earth, destroyed by the lurking suspicion that it is but the weak voice of hope sounding hollowly in the immense emptiness of nature. And many a sincere Christian has wondered anxiously whether his belief in God was perhaps after all only so much wishful thinking, a hedge against the brutal realities of man's brief existence. Many have felt the impact of cultural relativism upon their thinking, and have been compelled to reflect upon the purely fortuitous forces which have determined the kind of beliefs we hold to and the kind of standards we regard as normative. Some, doubtless, have experienced nothing that could constitute a threat to their beliefs; but such cultural isolationism is not easy to achieve (p. 64).

Hartshorne maintains its futile to attempt to prove God's existence. He writes:

Basic to the faith of the Christian would appear to be a firm belief in the existence of God; and if God's existence becomes problematic, what better way to allay doubt than to prove that he exists, as did St. Thomas Aquinas, for example. But the difficulty is that the arguments for God's existence have not fared well at the hands of philosophers. Kant's historic demolition of the traditional proofs has pretty well written "finis" to all subsequent attempts to establish God's existence by argument. The certainties of logical demonstration are, after all, purely formal. St. Thomas's arguments presuppose at the outset what is delivered as a conclusion, and thus are not likely to be useful in moving the mind of a doubting Thomas. If one attempts to establish the existence of God empirically, the complete lack of evidence (i.e., of anything that points unambiguously to God) soon cools one's enthusiasm; moreover, one could not hope for more than a degree of probability anyway. And further, to prove that an infinite being or an absolute being exists would be to demonstrate the existence of a logical impossibility, an achievement that would be notable not merely for its results but also for the ingenuity displayed in developing criteria (p. 65).

Hartshorne argues that the Christian must live in the present. He cannot pretend that the world and man's knowledge is the same as it was centuries ago (as fundamentalists do).

It is futile and pathetic to attempt to turn the clock back, to attempt to establish again the beliefs that no longer stand. We would dearly love to preserve our moral standards, our cherished doctrines, our values, our civilization against the skepticism of a godless age. We would raise yesterday from the dead. But this cannot be. The skepticism of contemporary man (in which we reluctantly share) is rooted in the reality of a world situation against which the defensive efforts of any orthodoxy, doctrinal, liturgical, or legal will be broken (p. 66).

The contemporary Christian, according to Hartshorne, must be able to live with doubt and uncertainty. He states: Our Christian faith can give us an understanding and a courage that does not evade doubt but accepts it , that does not evade anxiety but accepts it (p. 67). Of course, this is anathema to the fundamentalist mentality which demands certainty and no ambiguity. Thus, evangelical Christian apologetic ministries rise up to offer "answers" to all of the problems presented against the Christian faith. For those who demand certainty, the "answers" provided by these apologists are good enough. To Hartshorne, however, this desire for certainty is akin to idolatry. He writes:

Orthodoxy always tempts us to equate human insight with God's grace. Doubt, on the other hand, frees us from the idolatry of identifying God's truth with particular theological doctrines, or moral standards, or class interests. Doubt shatters the idols we continually manufacture and discloses the degree to which our reasoning is rationalization, our objectivity is subjectively determined. He who refuses to doubt refuses to think, refuses to take upon himself the full measure of his responsibility as a man. All orthodoxy has this character: that it close the door to doubt and criticism and hence involves our life in crippling distortion (p. 68). . . .

[Doubt] delivers us from the folly of pretending that faith gives us knowledge and virtue that transcend the relativities to which human wisdom and goodness are subject (p. 70).

I respect Harthorne's position. I don't agree with him in his choice to believe in God or Christ but I respect the fact that he realizes it is based on faith and not reason. I have far more respect for him than I do those Christians, and especially those Christian apologists, who think that their faith is based on solid evidence and reasoning.

The Essence of Reformed Epistemology

One of the most respected Christian philosophers of our age is Alvin Plantinga, the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Plantinga is the author of numerous journal articles and at least seven books:

• Warranted Christian Belief (2000)

• Warrant and Proper Function (1993)

• Warrant: the Current Debate (1993)

• Does God Have a Nature? (1980)

• God, Freedom & Evil (1974)

• The Nature of Necessity (1974)

• God and Other Minds (1967)

He is famous for his Reformed Epistemology in which he claims that belief in God is warranted or justified without any evidence. In other words, it is just as properly basic for man to believe in God as it is for man to believe in other minds or in the reality of the past (i.e., memories). He argues that this belief in God is a result of the sensus divinitatis (sense of the divine) which is found in each man (apparently based on Romans 1:19-21).

Although he is extremely erudite and his tomes demonstrate the highest of scholarship, when you actually "boil down" what he is saying, it comes down to: Belief in God just seems right (based on the reliabilist theory of knowledge).

See the first few minutes of the following video clip:



While technically Reformed Epistemology would allow for the basic belief in God to be defeated if the right evidence surfaced, practically speaking, it doesn't appear that Plantinga would really give up his belief. He writes:

...it is possible, at any rate in the broadly logical sense, that just by following ordinary historical reason, using the methods of historical investigation endorsed or enjoined by the deliverances of reason, someone should find powerful evidence against central elements of the Christian faith; if this happened, Christians would face a genuine faith-reason clash. A series of letters could be discovered, letters circulated among Peter, James, John, and Paul, in which the necessity for the hoax and the means of its perpetration are carefully and seriously discussed; these letters might direct workers to archaeological sites in which still more material of the same sort is discovered . . . . The Christian faith is a historical faith, in the sense that it essentially depends upon what did in fact happen: "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile" (I Corinthians 15:17). It could certainly happen that by the exercise of reason we come up with powerful evidence against something we take or took to be a deliverance of faith. It is conceivable that the assured results of HBC [Historical Biblical Criticism] should include such evidence. Then Christians would have a problem, a sort of conflict between faith and reason.

However, nothing at all like this has emerged from HBC, whether Troeltschian or non-Troletschian; indeed, there is little of any kind that can be considered "assured results," if only because of the wide ranging disagreement among those who practice HBC. We don't have anything like assured results (or even reasonably well-attested results) that conflict with traditional Christian belief in such a way that belief of that sort can continue to be accepted only at considerable cost; nothing at all like this has happened. What would be the appropriate response if it "did" happen or, rather, if I came to be convinced that it had happened? Would I have to give up Christian faith, or else give up the life of the mind? What would be the appropriate response (emphasis mine)? Well, what would be the appropriate response if I came to be convinced that someone had given a wholly rigorous, ineluctable disproof of the existence of God, perhaps something along the lines of J. N. Findlay's alleged ontological disproof? Or what if, with Reid's Hume, I come to think that my cognitive faculties are probably not reliable, and go on to note that I form this very belief on the basis of the very faculties whose reliability this belief impugns? If I did, what would or should I do--stop thinking about these things, immerse myself in practical activity (maybe play a lot of backgammon, maybe volunteer to help build houses for Habitat for Humanity), commit intellectual suicide? I don't know the answer to any of these questions (emphasis mine). There is no need to borrow trouble, however; we can think about crossing these bridges when (more likely, if) we come to them (Warranted Christian Belief, pp. 420-421).

So, it seems that he doesn't think it even remotely possible that some defeater could surface but in the unlikely event that it did, he doesn't know what he would do. I predict he would continue to hold on to his belief and find a way to explain the new evidence to agree with his faith.

Plantinga also makes another very interesting admission. He acknowledges that his epistemology could be applied to confer warrant for other religions such as Islam (Warranted Christian Belief, p. 350 and Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, eds. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, p. 78). So, his argument for a properly basic belief in God does not uniquely apply to Christianity.

He also uses a somewhat strange argument to counter the logical problem of natural evil. He says that natural evil could be caused by demons (God, Freedom, and Evil, p. 58). While he offers this only as a potential solution to defeat the logical problem of evil, nevertheless, it sounds more like a Medieval philosopher than it does one of the brightest lights of the modern era in philosophy.

So, while many today are enamored with Reformed Epistemology and the philosophy of Alvin Plantinga, I am not one of them.

For some excellent criticisms of Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology see, Matt McCormick, Finding God in My Own Mind

Jaco W. Gericke, FUNDAMENTALISM ON STILTS: A RESPONSE TO ALVIN PLANTINGA’S REFORMED EPISTEMOLOGY

Erik Baldwin, Could the Extended Aquinas/Calvin Model Defeat Basic Christian Belief ? (Philosophia Christi, Vol.8, No. 2 2006)

For a layman's summary of Baldwin's paper see the series on Common Sense Atheism

Evan Fales interview on Common Sense Atheism

The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God

Presuppositionalists are famous for their Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG). This is the argument that attempts to prove God's existence by arguing that logic, morals, and science ultimately presuppose the Christian worldview, and that God's absolute nature is the source of logic and morals. The presuppositionalist maintains that the unbeliever "borrows" the truths of the Christian worldview, the existence of logic, the existence of morality and the ability to reason from the Christian worldview. They hold that these "truths" cannot be derived from the nontheistic worldview. The nontheistic worldview, they claim, has no basis to believe that the chance arrangement of atoms has produced a reliable basis for thinking (reason and logic) or for morality. These things are only possible if they come from outside of nature, i.e., a transcendent being.

An interesting dialogue took place on this issue between Douglas Wilson and Farrell Till. It was printed in Credenda/Agenda (Vol. 7; No. 1) under the title, "Justifying Non-Christian Objections."

Below is some of the interchange with my comments in bold.

DW: Many unbelievers commonly object to the God of the Bible on the basis of ethical "problems" with the character of God as revealed in the Scriptures. Whether they use psalms of imprecation, the slaughter of the Canaanites, the eternal wrath of God on the impenitent, etc ., the central theme is usually the same "Who would want to worship a God like that !" But despite the surface plausibility of the objection, a careful examination of it shows their Achilles attacking our Hector with his bare heel. Far from being the unbeliever's strongest case against the true God, this objection actually reveals the radical futility of unbelief; without God there are no ethical objections to anything.

FT: Although you didn't expressly state the "objective-morality" position of evangelical apologists, you certainly implied it when you said that "without God there are no ethical objections to anything." The fallacy of this position is its failure to recognize that morality is an intellectual abstraction. As such, it is no different from abstractions of tragedy, sorrow, or any of many other abstractions the human mind has formulated from its broad range of experience. Arguing that human intelligence cannot determine if acts are immoral without a god to tell us they are is as illogical as arguing that we cannot tell if events are tragic without a god of tragedy to tell us they are.

Wilson states: without God there are no ethical objections to anything.

Besides the fact this is an assertion not an argument, it does not agree with our experience and our knowledge of the world. People all over the world have beliefs about what is right or wrong and many of these people do not believe in a transcendent being. For example, there are nearly 1 billion Buddhists in the world, there are millions of atheists and agnostics. If only those who are "true Christians" as Wilson would define them have a true knowledge of this transcendent being, then that would mean well over 95% of the people on the earth don't recognize the true God and yet they all have a theory of ethics that they live by.

Where did man get this system of morality? Wilson would say that it is derived as a result of man being made in the image of God. I would dispute this on the basis that man's moral intuitions tell him that it is wrong to slaughter babies, yet the God whose morality we are supposed to reflect, ordered the massacre of babies in the OT on multiple occasions. Man's moral intuitions also tell him that it is wrong to punish an innocent person in place of the guilty person, yet God's plan of atonement is based on this very principle. How can man, on the one hand, have this sense of morality as a result of being made in the image of God and, on the other hand, God's actions betray this sense of morality?

So if man's sense of morality does not come from God from where does it come? I think it comes as a part of man's evolutionary development. Why do all men have a similar sense of basic right and wrong? Because we all are descended from common ancestors. We share the same human nature. It is as natural for man to have a common sense of right and wrong as it is natural for all men to walk upright. Why are there some differences among men as to the details of morality? I think its due to the fact that man lives in groups and these groups (societies) have over the years established laws based on what seemed to be the most advantageous for the betterment of the group. In many cases, these same "laws" would not apply to "outsiders." Outsiders could be treated in a way that would be wrong to treat insiders. Nevertheless when man thinks abstractly, he typically thinks of "laws" that should be applicable in every case to every man. This doesn't come, in my opinion, from a transcendent being but rather comes from man's ability to think abstractly and universally.

DW: Fine, I'll bite. If there is no God, then all the things you mention are in the same meaningless category. Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain, in turn created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else.

FT: You bit too hard. In equating all human abstractions with "swamp gas over fetid water," you overlook verifiable facts. The human mind can think; swamp gas can't. Human intelligence can evaluate situations and formulate abstractions of beauty, happiness, sorrow, fairness and morality; swamp gas can't. Are these abstractions valid? Well, what IQ level is needed to conceptualize abstractions like beautiful, sad, fair, right or wrong? Can one with an IQ of 100 do it, or must his IQ be infinite? The existence of moral concepts is verifiable; the existence of gods who put such concepts into human minds is unverifiable. Please address this problem.

DW says: Morality, tragedy, and sorrow . . . are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain . . . If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena.

Wilson is confusing the mechanical or chemical operations of the brain with what the brain produces. The operations of a computer could be described based on the electrical activity within the circuit boards, etc. but that would not discredit the data that is derived from this electrical activity working within silicon chips. If one wants to argue, "Yes but the computer was designed and if evolution is true, the brain was not," that is another issue altogether. We would now be moving to the teleological argument for the existence of God. There are answers to this argument but it would take us away from the argument from morality put forward by Wilson.

DW: You missed my challenge. You acknowledge the distinction between human intelligence and swamp gas, but you have no way to account for it. If there is no God, then why is there a distinction between the chemical reactions in your head and elsewhere? Suppose we agreed that the walls of a house are straight. I say there must be a foundation under it -- a precondition for straight walls. Your hypothesis is the house has no foundation at all and doesn't need one. "See, the walls are straight without a foundation." But given your worldview's assumptions, why ? Can you explain how time and chance acting on matter can produce the straight walls of reason and morality?

FT: No, you missed my challenge. You are the asserter, so you must bear the burden of proving your assertion. You have asserted that "without God there are no ethical objections to anything," so I insist that you prove that. You have admitted that human intelligence can formulate abstractions, but you say that " all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water." Prove that please. Can the brain's solution of algebra problems be right? If so, does "God" have to put the right solutions into the brain? If not, can a brain that correctly solves algebra problems correctly solve moral problems? If not, why not? Where did your god get his intelligence?

Wilson does move to the teleological argument and insists that without God, one could not account for how man's mind works. I think this is a failure on Wilson's part to understand evolution. Man's mind has evolved over thousands of years by adapting to its environment. Those adaptations that were useful for man's survival have been passed along whereas those that were not, have not been passed down. Since man is adapting to his environment it appears that there may be some design involved but this is only apparent not real.

DW: "There is truth in the theism-atheism controversy." Amen. You are able to say so because you assume that truth is objective. Again, you bet. But objective truth cannot be validly derived from the premises of your worldview. You are borrowing objective rationality and morality from the Christian worldview in order to attack the rationality and morality of the Christian worldview. There was a moral problem in the Amalekite attack -- Saul was disobedient and didn't kill everything as God instructed. You should have no objection. Given your worldview, there is no moral difference between the Amalekite massacre and a day at the beach. In both cases, all you have is atoms banging around.

FT: If the Amalekite children who were killed with Israelite spears could speak, would they say there was any difference in what happened to them and a day at the beach? You know they would. What IQ level would they need to distinguish the difference? You have evaded the issue long enough, so why don't you tell us how much intelligence is needed to formulate abstractions of beauty, loyalty, justice, etc.? Without a god of beauty, can one validly determine that a sunset is beautiful? If so, why can't one determine that acts are immoral without a god of morality? Truth is objective because of reality, not because some deity arbitrarily decides what truth is.

I tend to disagree that there is absolute objective morality or absolute objective rationality. I think that since all men are subjects and all the knowledge we have we received as subjects, that there is no way for any of us to speak in terms of the "truly objective." We can come to an agreement on what appears to be the case and this is about as close to objectivity as we can get. For example, how do we know that an apple is red? We "know" because we have come to an agreement on what "red" looks like. There is basic and universal agreement on the color "red." However, there are various shades of red and once we get outside of the basic color red we may no longer agree on whether a particular shade of red is truly red. So, in essence the identification of "red" is subjective but because we have come to universal agreement on at least one shade of "red," we can all agree that an apple is red. The same is true of language. The only reason we can communicate with one another is because we have agreed on what certain combinations of letters mean. There is basic agreement but once again it can break down based on the subjectivity involved (i.e., one's interpretation of the words).

DW: If morality is not objective, then it is subjective. If it is subjective, then it is as diverse as five billion subjective states of mind. Such fragmented subjectivity provides no authoritative ethical voice, and hence no morality deserving of the name. Related to this, you must now disclaim "objective rationality" as well as "objective morality," for the two are built on the same foundation -- or rather, in your worldview, not built on the same non-foundation. But if objective rationality does not exist, then your worldview does not permit you to reason for three words in a row, much less 115. The laws of logic are as nonmaterial as the God you so diligently oppose.

FT: Are you arguing that subjectivism cannot determine truth? If so, reality will not support your claim. You keep harping about my worldview, so please address the many problems in your "worldview." Where did "objective" reality come from? From God? Well, where did he come from? How can one determine what "objective" morality is? From the Bible? If so, a lot of subjectivism will be involved in reading and interpreting it. Looking for "objective" morality in the Bible will produce a morality "as diverse as 5 billion subjective states of mind." If not, why not? "Such fragmented subjectivity" will provide "no authoritative ethical voice" and so "no morality deserving of the name." Please address this issue.

When Wilson says that without God and objective morality, we will have 5 billion different views of what is moral, he fails to consider two things: 1) As stated above, all men share a common ancestry and our brains have evolved in the same way--thus we think similarly. Wilson's view could only be maintained if we all evolved separately on different planets and then were brought here to earth to form a society. Then, we would all think differently. 2) Morality is "objective" in the sense that men agree together on what they consider to be right and wrong within their social group. Just as red is "objective" in the sense that we have agreed on its basic color.

While the transcendental argument for God might seem convincing at first glance, once one "drills down" into the argument, it is found to be hollow (see these articles) It is really quite ludicrous to think that man can only have a sense of right and wrong if God exists and he can only know what is right and wrong if God tells him in a holy book.

Problems with Presuppositional Apologetics

In yesterday's post, I discussed problems that presuppositional apologists such as Greg Bahnsen have with the use of evidences to try to persuade non-believers in the truth of Christianity. Today, I want to look at other evangelical apologists' criticisms of presuppositionalism. An interesting book was published in 2000 entitled, Five Views on Apologetics, edited by Steven Cowan. The book has five leading representatives of various apologetical schools defending their methodology. William Craig defends "Classical Apologetics" (the use of the deductive theistic arguments such as the cosmological and teleological). Gary Habermas defends "Evidential Apologetics" (the use of inductive arguments such as historical evidences for the resurrection). Paul Feinberg (longtime professor of Philosophy and Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) defends "Cumulative Case Apologetics" (the use of multiple lines of argumentation which together prove Christianity). John Frame defends "Presuppositional Apologetics" (the idea of presupposing the truth of the Bible in order to prove Christianity). Kelly Clark defends "Reformed Epistemology" (the idea that belief in God is properly basic as a result of the sensus divinitatis, the "sense of the divine" present in all men). While there is significant agreement and overlap in the various approaches, the most marked distinction is between the presuppositionalist position and the others.

I have identified 10 separate criticisms of Presuppositional Apologetics (hereafter, PA) from the other apologists writing in Five Views.

1. PA is an assertion not an argument.

PA believes in proclaiming the gospel not arguing for the gospel. It believes that argumentation is useless because until the Holy Spirit regenerates (which they believe precedes faith) the lost man, he will never be persuaded of the truth of Christianity.

Kelly Clark says that PA prefers assertion over argument (p. 256). He elaborates:

Whenever I read presuppositionalists I almost always think, "Saying it's so doesn't make it so." Saying that Christianity is the criterion of truth (whatever that could mean), that Christian belief is the most certain thing we know, that Christian faith is not defeasible, and that Scripture supports these views, does not make it so. There are few apologetic approaches that are so long on assured proclamation and so short on argument (pp. 370-371).

2. PA begs the question.

Frame formulates the PA's argument in the form of a syllogism.

Premise 1: Whatever the Bible says is true.
Premise 2: The Bible says it is the Word of God.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible is the Word of God.

For Christians, the argument expresses an important truth: As our supreme standard, Scripture is self-attesting. There is nothing higher than God's Word by which God's Word may be validated (pp. 356-57).

Craig points out that this is "begging the question." He writes:

Where presuppositionalism muddies the waters is in its apologetic methodology. As commonly understood, presuppositionalism is guilty of a logical howler: it commits the informal fallacy of "petitio principii," or begging the question, for its advocates presupposing the truth of Christian theism in order to prove Christian theism. Frame himself says that we are "forced to say, 'God exists (presupposition), therefore God exists (conclusion),' even though such reasoning is "clearly circular" (p. 217). It is difficult to imagine how anyone could with a straight face think to show theism to be true by reasoning, "God exists. Therefore, God exists"(pp. 232-33).

Craig continues:

Furthermore, it would be circular reasoning if we were to try to show that the gospel is true on the basis of the Scriptures, since the Scriptures are a written expression of the gospel. Thus, while one can use the Scriptures as historical documentary evidence, one cannot, withouth begging the question, use them as God's Word to argue for the truth of God's Word. That is why Scripture as God's Word does not play a greater, distinct role in my religious epistemology (p. 315).

Feinberg succinctly states: To make Scripture a test for truth in apologetics is to argue circularly. I find this to be a problem (p. 348).

3. PA is defensive in nature and offers no positive reasons to believe.

Habermas argues that presuppositionalism is only an incomplete apologetic system. I would even say that it fails in the most important aspect--providing positive reasons to believe (p. 241).

According to PA, the unbeliever cannot be persuaded to accept the Christian faith by arguments or evidence because to the natural man the things of the spirit are foolishness. One has to presuppose the truth of the Bible in order see its veracity. In reality, one can only see the veracity of the Bible, once God has implanted faith in the individual. Since PAs by their own proclamation are consistent Calvinists, they believe that unless and until God regenerates a man, that man will never see the truth of Christianity. One might as well expect a blind man to see or a deaf man to hear. It is actually then futile to engage in apologetics. Evangelism is what Christians should engage in and apologetics at best offers negative criticisms of other worldviews, it does not offer positive proofs for Christianity.

4. PA is based on a false analogy.

Habermas says that according to PA:

No one can be neutral, we must all begin with some sort of prior notions. Given such a stance, they can basically begin with the truth of Christian theism in at least some form. But somehow Frame proceeds from here to Scripture, as if this entire body of truth is justified by the need for a starting point.

Here Frame commits the informal logical fallacy of false analogy. He argues that rationalists must accept reason as an ultimate starting point, just as empiricists must assume sense experience, and so on. So the Christian may begin with Scripture as a legitimate starting point. But these are not analogous bases. While the rationalist uses reason and the empiricist uses sense experience as tools from which to construct their systems, Frame assumes both the tool of special revelation and the system of Scripture, from which he develops his Christian theism. In other words, he assumes the reality of God's existence, his personal interaction with humans, plus a specific product: Scripture. Does Frame not realize that, in the name of everyone needing a presupposition, he has imported an entire worldview when the others have only asked for tools? (p. 242).

5. PA could be used to "prove" any religion.

In response to the argument of PA that if one used anything outside of the Bible to verify the Bible (as evidentialists like Habermas and classical apologists like Craig do), then whatever is being used to verify the truth of the Bible has in effect become the ultimate authority. Since the Bible is the ultimate authority as the Word of God, nothing can be over the Bible in terms of authority. Habermas points out that according to this way of thinking a Muslim could equally presuppose the truth of the Qu'ran. Unless something outside of the Qu'ran could be used to falsify the Qu'ran, then there would be no way to disprove it. The Christian and the Muslim could only state their beliefs against the other (p. 244).

In addition, Habermas points out that in the Bible itself, God gives evidences for the veracity of his revelation. For example, in the OT, a prophet was recognized as being a true prophet only if his prophecy came to pass (Dt. 18:21-22). In the case of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, the evidence of fire from heaven was given as a proof of the reality of Yahweh. In the NT, Jesus offers miracles as evidence that he is the Messiah and his disciples proclaim the resurrection of Jesus as the ultimate proof of their message. Thus, the PA methodology is at odds with the Bible itself.

6. PA would mean that the unbeliever is not able to know anything.

According to PA, the nonbeliever must presuppose the existence of God in order to deny him. Here PA tries to show that the nonbeliever is really inconsistent. In any worldview except Calvinistic Christianity, there is no basis for thinking that man has grounds for believing that his cognitive faculties are reliable or that his sense perception is reliable or that the external world even exists. Clark argues that the logical conclusion of PA puts them in the untenable position of saying that the nonbeliever really can't be justified in knowing anything. He can hold true opinions but never true knowledge unless he unwittingly presupposes the truth of the Scriptures (pp. 256-59).

7. PA is wrong to assume that one cannot "step outside of their worldview" to examine other worldviews.

Feinberg disagrees with PA on this point. He believes that people can step outside of their worldviews and look at things as one would in another worldview. I can think about things from the presuppositions of an unbeliever, and I think that unbelievers can think about things from the standpoint of a Christian (p. 251).

8. PA produces arrogance.

PA tends to think that they and they alone have the biblical method of apologetics. They have roundly criticized other apologetic methods and apologists as compromising the authority of Scripture.

Clark writes:Presuppositionalists have tended to believe themselves to be the biblical and Christian apologists (arrogantly so, in my estimation, when they call other apologetical approaches anti-Christian) . . . (p. 256).

Presuppositionalists pride themselves on finding their view (and their view alone) supported by Scripture. Indeed, Frame patronizingly suggest that I need to do more Bible study (p. 371).

9. PA diminishes the importance of reason.

Clark argues:

Is autonomous human reason a bad thing? If its a bad thing, it is all the worse for us because it is all that we have. Although people often oppose revelation to reason and suggest that revelation is superior, there can be, in the end, no real opposition. Here is the problem: Each person must decide (tacitly or explicitly) that a purported revelation is revelation. Each person must decide that what is being said in some particular holy writ is the voice of God. Each person must decide what is being said and then what it means. And each person must decide what it means today that God said something a long time ago. At every level, human reason is operative.

Frame says: "To claim neutrality is to claim that I am the one who ultimately decides what is true or false" [p. 218]. But surely I am the one who decides what is true or false. Who else could do that for me? of course, our deciding does not make something true or false; that is not my point. My point is that each of us must make decisions using our best judgment about what is true and false. I don't see any other way around it. We have no other faculty than reason to come to our best judgment of which god to follow (or not) and what it means to follow that god (p. 262).

Clark points out that reason is needed even to understand the Bible and to evaluate different interpretations. I suspect that some presuppositionalists believe that Scripture is so clear that submission to God's truths does not involve any imposition of human reason. But the tremendous diversity of Christian interpretations of Scripture suggest otherwise (p. 262).

10. PA confuses faith with certainty.

PA prides itself in having the only apologetic method that allows for the certainty that Christianity is true. All the others deal with probability.

Clark points out, however, that faith does not always equal certainty. He writes:

Frame claims that faith is not defeasible (and hence is certain and indubitable) and offers Abraham as his example. But Abraham is surely not a good example. He laughed at God, slept with his maidservant, banished his son (Ishmael), and lied twice about his wife to protect himself. Read the life story of any of the so-called heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 and see if it supports Frame's claims. Read carefully through the lament Psalms and see if you come away with the belief that faithfulness implies certainty. Faith is a journey fraught with peril, risk, and uncertainty. We see through a glass darkly, and we see the goal from afar. Certainty is the goal or the ideal not the beginning or the reality. We are not perfect in practice, nor are we perfect in belief. Scripture itself is painfully honest about doubt and the struggle of faith (p. 371).

As I pointed out in yesterday's post, PA makes some valid criticisms of evidentialist apologetics. It points out that evidences do not come with their own built-in interpretation but that they are subject to being understood in light of the individual's presuppositions and background knowledge. Today, I show that PA is not free from problems itself. It essentially is guilty of circular reasoning. One presupposes the truth of the Bible in order to believe in God. Thus, in my opinion all Christian apologetic methods fail. That is one reason why I remain a convinced non-believer.

Some Evangelicals See the Problems Associated with the "Evidence" for the Resurrection

Many Christian apologists, such as William Craig, Gary Habermas, and Mike Licona, argue that the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is so strong that anyone who studies the evidence with an open mind will come to the conclusion that Jesus really did rise from the grave. Not all evangelicals agree with this assessment, however. One school in particular, the presuppositionalists, maintain that it is foolhardy for a believer to argue for the resurrection of Jesus based on the historical evidence. They maintain that the evidence, while good, will never convince an unbeliever because they will always interpret the evidence within a naturalistic worldview. What needs to happen, according to these Calvinistic apologists, is for the Holy Spirit to regenerate the heart of the unbeliever and thereby change his worldview. Thus, they believe that it is futile to use rational or historical arguments for the resurrection, rather, one needs to proclaim the fact of the resurrection using the Word of God as his authority.

One of the leading presuppositionalists was Greg Bahnsen (1948-1995). He wrote a paper in 1972 entitled, "The Impropriety of Evidentially Arguing for the Resurrection," (Synapse II [Westminster Seminary]).

Bahnsen states:

Evangelicals are often prone to generate inductive arguments for the veracity of Christianity based on the historical resurrection of Christ, and such arguments occupy central importance in this apologetic. It is felt that if a man would simply consider the "facts" presented and use his common reasoning sense he would be rationally compelled to believe the truth of scripture. In such a case the evidences for Christ's resurrection are foundational to apologetical witnessing, whereas their only proper place is confirmatory of the believer's presupposed faith. There is a certain impropriety about attempting to move an opponent from his own circle into the circle of Christian belief by appealing to evidence for the resurrection, and there are many reasons why the evidentialist's building a case for Christianity upon neutral ground with the unbeliever ought to be avoided.

The first reason why appeal to evidences is wrong, according to Bahnsen, is that it sets the mind of man above the Word of God in terms of what is the ultimate authority. He explains:

The Christian does not look at the evidence impartially, standing on neutral ground with the unbeliever, waiting to see if the evidence warrants trust in God's truthfulness or not. Rather, he begins by submitting to the truth of God, preferring to view every man as a liar if he contradicts God's word (cf. Rom. 3:4). No one can demand proof from God, and the servant of the Lord should never give in to any such demand (and obviously, neither should he suggest that such a demand be made by the unbeliever). The apostles were certainly not afraid of evidence; yet we notice that they never argued on the basis of it. They preached the resurrection without feeling any need to prove it to the skeptics; they unashamedly appealed to it as fact. They explained the meaning of the resurrection, its significance, its fulfillment of prophecy, its centrality in theology, its redemptive power, its promise and assuring function - but they did not attempt to prove it by appealing to the "facts" which any "rational man" could use as satisfying scholarly requirements of credibility. By trying to build up a proof of the resurrection from unbiased grounds the Christian allows his witness to be absorbed into a pagan framework and reduces the antithesis between himself and the skeptic to a matter of a few particulars.

Secondly, Bahnsen points out that the study of history is based on uniformity. In other words, the historian assumes that the past was like the present. The same laws of cause and effect were in place then as they are now. He writes:

We note immediately that an inductive (historical) argument rests for its validity on the premise of uniformity (past and present) in nature; this makes possible a consideration of an analogy of circumstance. Yet the very point which the evidentialist is trying to prove is that of miracle, i.e. discontinuity. So he is enmeshed in using a principle of continuity to establish the truth of discontinuity! When the evidentialist seeks to exhibit that the resurrection very probably occurred as a unique truth-attesting sign he is divided against himself .

What Bahnsen is saying is that when a historian looks at history, he is looking to discover what "most likely" or "most probably" happened. The fact that a miracle is, by its very definition, an improbable event makes it contradictory for a historian to argue that a miracle probably happened(Bart Ehrman does a good job of making this point in his debate with Mike Licona: Can Historians Prove Jesus Rose From The Dead?).

Bahnsen continues:

Next, we observe that probability is statistically predicated of a series in which an event reoccurs on a regular basis; that is, general probability might be proven for a reoccurring event, but the resurrection of Christ is a one-time event. Can probability be predicated of a particular occurrence? Not normally.

The third point that Bahnsen makes against the use of evidence in apologetics is that, at best, all evidentialism can do is establish that the resurrection is a plausible theory not a definite reality. This point, according to Bahnsen undermines the certainty of the resurrection which one can have by presupposing the truth of the Scripture. He explains:

Finally, once the evidentialist has failed to maintain that Christianity is the only adequate basis for a meaningful interpretation of historical facts and not simply a working hypothesis which is "as plausible" as the next with respect to isolated facts, and once he has lowered his sights by appealing to the probability of scripture's truth, then he has left the door open for the skeptic's escape to considerations of possibility. If Christ only probably arose, then it is possible that the evidence adduced has a completely different interpretation; even if certain facts seem to point to the probable resurrection of Jesus, it is admitted that other evidence points to the disconfirmation of the gospel records! But this is not the Christian position, for according to it there is no possibility that Christ did not arise; this is a foundational, incorrigible fact as revealed in God's authoritative word .

Fourth, Bahnsen maintains that the historical evidence for the resurrection is dependent upon human testimony which everyone agrees is fallible. If human testimony can be wrong, then the testimony about the resurrection of Jesus could be wrong. He states:

Under cross-examination most of the considerations brought forth by evidentialists can be dismissed as overstated, gratuitous, or inconclusive. There is little if any basis for holding to a resurrection as probably taking place in the past and arguing that the witnesses are probably reliable is a completely different matter. It is also unsuitable for the intended aim of the argument, for the very place that the witnesses could be mistaken, deceptive, or distorted might be the very event under question!

Bahnsen's final point is that even the evidentialist succeeded in proving that the resurrection happened, it would not prove the early Christian's interpretation of the event was accurate. Just as with the death of Jesus, unless a divine revelation is given explaining its meaning, the event has no theological significance. One could have witnessed the death of Jesus and his resurrection but without a word from God telling him what all of this means, the witness is no better off. He may put a completely erroneous meaning to the events. Again Bahnsen elaborates:

the evidentialist may prove the historical resurrection of Christ, but he proves that it is simply an isolated and uninterpreted "freak" event in a contingent universe. He is still stranded on the far side of Lessing's ditch (i.e. the skeptic can grant that Christ arose and then simply ask what that odd, ancient fact has to do with his own present life and experience). The fact that Christ rose from the dead does not prove anything within the neutral framework of an evidentialist's argument. Christ's resurrection does not entail his deity, just as our future resurrection does not entail our divinity! . . . The evidentialist may prove the resurrection of Jesus, but until he proves every other point of Christianity, then resurrection is an isolated, irrelevant, "brute" fact which is no aid to our apologetical efforts. Only within the system of Christian logic does the resurrection of Christ have meaning and implication; and that system of logical entailment and premises can only be used on a presuppositional basis - you do not argue into it. In terms of the evidentialist's approach to the unbeliever, that skeptic can accept the resurrection without flinching, for the resurrection is simply a random fact until a Christian foundation has been placed under it.

I agree with most of Bahnsen's criticisms of attempting to prove the resurrection from historical evidence. He is to be commended for recognizing that ultimately a belief in the resurrection of Jesus comes down to faith. Faith that the Bible is a divine revelation and faith that Jesus is living.

Changing World-Views

One's world-view (German--weltanschauung) is a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint. Put simply, its how one views one's world. It includes the presuppositions and belief system through which one makes sense of what he sees and experiences in the real world.

One’s world view does shape how one interprets the evidence. There is a good illustration of this in John's Gospel (12:28-29), when Jesus said: Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. Note the two different interpretations of what they heard: 1) some said it thundered (perhaps the Saduccees or those influenced by them); 2) others said an angel spoke (perhaps the Pharisees or those influenced by them). One event--two interpretations. One group interpreted it within a naturalistic framework and the other within a supernatural framework.

Thus, some Christian apologists will argue that it does no good to debate with non-believers over the evidence for Christianity because the non-believer will give a different interpretation to the evidence than will the Christian. This particular school of apologetics is called the presuppositional school and is largely held by Calvinists. These apologists also maintain that since the unregenerate man cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14), the Christian world-view will always seem like foolishness to him (1 Cor. 1:23-29) unless and until the Holy Spirit regenerates him. Before that happens, the natural man is blinded by Satan and cannot believe the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4).

The presuppositional apologists would say that other apologists, such as William Craig, are wasting their time trying to explain the beauty of a sunset to a blind man. They also criticize Craig and other apologists as in fact making historical evidence and philosophical arguments more authoritative than the Word of God since they use those arguments to try to substantiate the Word of God. Their thinking is that whatever you use as your authority to prove something else is superior in authority to the thing proved.

Now, I think there is a lot to be said for the presuppositionalist's criticisms of other apologists. As a matter of fact, when I was a Christian I was a presuppositionalist. Occasionally, I run into a presuppositionalist on some forums. This happened yesterday. Listen to a gentleman who calls himself Hodge (comment #91):

Evidence doesn’t EVER determine your ultimate beliefs. EVER! Your ultimate beliefs define reality and therefore identify, organize, and interpret the evidence AT ALL TIMES. Our atheism is given to us at an early age. I believe it is part of the sin nature, and fostered in our culture, mainly in implicit forms. Religious beliefs are simply stacked on top of it, or in my view, supernaturally replace our ultimate belief of unbelief with true faith. Otherwise, it’s simply a tug of war that eventually ends in the assent to it, or it’s a life of intellectual simplicity that never asks those questions. But let’s not be dishonest with ourselves and pretend that uninterpreted data moves the belief that interprets it in the first place. There is no such animal on the planet.

I agree completely that one's world-view determines how one interprets the evidence. However, I also believe that one can change world-views when one comes to realize that the evidence is more coherent within another world-view. I think Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is helpful in understanding how this change happens.

Here is a synopsis of Kuhn's thesis (from a Study Guide prepared by Frank Pajares):

1. A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs (p. 4).

a. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice" (p. 5).

b. The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs exert a "deep hold" on the student's mind.

2. Normal science "is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like" (p. 5)—scientists take great pains to defend that assumption.

3. To this end, "normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments" (p. 5).

4. Research is "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education" (p. 5).

5. A shift in professional commitments to shared assumptions takes place when an anomaly "subverts the existing tradition of scientific practice" (p. 6). These shifts are what Kuhn describes as scientific revolutions—"the tradition-shattering complements to the tradition-bound activity of normal science" (p. 6).

a. New assumptions (paradigms/theories) require the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the reevaluation of prior facts. This is difficult and time consuming. It is also strongly resisted by the established community.

b. When a shift takes place, "a scientist's world is qualitatively transformed [and] quantitatively enriched by fundamental novelties of either fact or theory" (p. 7).

In my case, I found that the evangelical Christian world-view was internally contradictory and that the “facts” of the real world did not fit within that world-view as well within another world-view. So with great reluctance and over a long period of time, my world-view changed.