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Open call for Presups

Athée

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You're fine, we all have ignorance in areas. It is distinct from the Roman Catholic and Arminian approach, and one reason why it is often criticized and rejected by many Christians as well. It is both a philosophical and theological approach, and highly involved with epistemology. Although I am unclear where Dr. Alvin Plantinga stands on the Van Tillian Apologetic, I think his work in philosophy has complimented or contributed to the Van Tillian Apologetic. Apologetics has both a defense and an offense, kind of like in many sports, and to an extent presuppositionalism presents an offense, or in other terms a negative defense, rather than a positive. In a way it is kind of a tool, a method of looking at assumptions, and can be applied to well most anything and everything. It is invaluable in looking at schools of thought in terms of a worldview, in how beliefs and thoughts are linked or overlap. So far as a reasoned defense in terms of positive proofs, Van Tillians tend to use transcendental arguments or abbreviated as TAG, that is a transcendental argument for the existence of God. Hope this helps.

So in conversation with an atheist the idea would be.
1. Demonstrate an inconsistency in the atheist worldview.

2. Run the TAG argument to argue that the inconsistency is only solved on theism.

Once they agree to that, then

3. Present biblical evidences that demonstrate that Christian theism is the only coherent option.

Yes?
 
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So in conversation with an atheist the idea would be.
1. Demonstrate an inconsistency in the atheist worldview.

2. Run the TAG argument to argue that the inconsistency is only solved on theism.

Once they agree to that, then

3. Present biblical evidences that demonstrate that Christian theism is the only coherent option.

Yes?

Those are all elements yes, there is more going on though with a full orbed defense. The Van Tillian doesn't assume a generic theism, nothing less than the Reformed faith. Which is a reason why you'll find many Christians opposed, because they do not agree with us on anthropology or the doctrines of man in Scripture, concerning the nature of man. If you noticed in your other thread, a Christian responded to one of my posts essentially arguing against the Apostle Paul taking issue with Romans chapter 1, which I find rather sad and irrational, even by implication arguing against Scriptural basis for evidentialist proofs, and while I am not an evidentialist apologist, I do not deny the value of traditional arguments to the Christian worldview, (I think) they demonstrate the consistency of Christianity with reality in the Christian worldview. So I see presuppositionalism as kind of a Reformed epistemological framework for tag and other arguments, a kind of integrated apologetic or approach.

Here's an example of a civil formal debate:

 
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drstevej

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BTW, I have an autographed copy of Van Til's Defense of the Faith. When I was at WTS he was retired but hung around to talk with students. Really awesome to chat with him a bit.
 
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Athée

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Those are all elements yes, there is more going on though with a full orbed defense. The Van Tillian doesn't assume a generic theism, nothing less than the Reformed faith. Which is a reason why you'll find many Christians opposed, because they do not agree with us on anthropology or the doctrines of man in Scripture, concerning the nature of man. If you noticed in your other thread, a Christian responded to one of my posts essentially arguing against the Apostle Paul taking issue with Romans chapter 1, which I find rather sad and irrational, even by implication arguing against Scriptural basis for evidentialist proofs, and while I am not an evidentialist apologist, I do not deny the value of traditional arguments to the Christian worldview, (I think) they demonstrate the consistency of Christianity with reality in the Christian worldview. So I see presuppositionalism as kind of a Reformed epistemological framework for tag and other arguments, a kind of integrated apologetic or approach.

Here's an example of a civil formal debate:


I will have to watch this later, off for a swim in the river with the kids!
Feel free to message me directly if you wanted to walk through the method with me so we can see how it goes and avoid the insults :)
 
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BTW, I have an autographed copy of Van Til's Defense of the Faith. When I was at WTS he was retired but hung around to talk with students. Really awesome to chat with him a bit.

ohhhh I'm so jealous! Most everyone I've came across who met him, have glowing things to say about him. He's been described as kind of a grandfatherly like person.

"At least once a day Oome Kees would walk at least a couple of miles. The people in the neighborhood knew him as Dr. Van Til and he would always strike up a conversation with those who were on the route he took that day. While walking with him, you would pass various houses on the way, and he would talk about his contacts with this or that family. He had a deep passion for the souls of those he met and those who were his neighbors. In one of the areas where he walked was a convent and he would talk to the nuns and the priests." Robert den Dulk
 
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Chinchilla

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Hi again,

Recently I started a thread about a comment made by a friend who has gotten into presup apologetics. It generated some interesting discussion but I feel like it unfairly hung an unsophisticated view on the presups in these forms.

I am quite interested in the presup apologetics approach these days and offer this open call to any presup that happens to read this.

What is the method? How is it an apologetic? What are the important ideas? What books do I need to read?
Are you interested in a bit of a back and forth to demonstrate the method?

Peace

I can give you a video about such so you can get Idea of what it is .
Might have strong language so 16+ , some teenagers are cursing left and right nowdays .

 
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No presups interested in going through the exchange with me?

Maybe Tree of Life will come back to the thread, I look forward to it. :) Not sure what you've read up on, but wanted to mention a couple of important terms, autonomy and theonomy. A Christian worldview accounts for both, while a consistent Atheist worldview is autonomous through and through, in theory at least, it is supposed. Dr. Frame put together a nice glossary of terms helpful to any presuppositional discussion, it's found here.
 
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Athée

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I can give you a video about such so you can get Idea of what it is .
Might have strong language so 16+ , some teenagers are cursing left and right nowdays .


Thanks for the video link. I'm not terribly worried about language. I will watch it, however, I would much rather have a back and forth with an actual person though to get a sense for the position and ask questions etc.

Peace
 
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No presups interested in going through the exchange with me?

One common objection is circular reasoning, on my blog, I put together a collection of quotes from Dr. Van Til pertaining to this objection. There's also a helpful article by Dr. Richard Pratt to be found where he answers common objections.

Here are a few short but to the point quotes without the greater context:

"The only alternative to “circular reasoning” as engaged in by Christians, no matter on what point they speak, is that of reasoning on the basis of isolated facts and isolated minds, with the result that there is no possibility of reasoning at all. Unless as sinners we have an absolutely inspired Bible, we have no absolute God interpreting reality for us, and unless we have an absolute God interpreting reality for us, there is no true interpretation at all.

This is not to deny that there is a true interpretation up to a point by those who do not self-consciously build upon the self-conscious God of Scripture as their ultimate reference point. Non-believers often speak the truth in spite of themselves. But we are not now concerned with what men do in spite of themselves. We are concerned to indicate that the absolute distinction between true and false must be maintained when a self-consciously adopted monotheistic and a self-consciously adopted theistic point of view confront one another.

We may now first show what the Scripture says about personal revelation, then what it says about scriptural revelation, in order to see that plenary inspiration is involved in these two.” – Cornelius Van Til, Systematic Theology Chapter 12 The Inspiration of Scripture

"To admit one’s own presuppositions and to point out the presuppositions of others is therefore to maintain that all reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning. The starting-point, the method, and the conclusion are always involved in one another.” – Cornelius Van Til, Apologetics, Chapter 4 The Problem of Method

"The charge is made that we engage in circular reasoning. Now if it be called circular reasoning when we hold it necessary to presuppose the existence of God, we are not ashamed of it because we are firmly convinced that all forms of reasoning that leave God out of account will end in ruin. Yet we hold that our reasoning cannot fairly be called circular reasoning, because we are not reasoning about and seeking to explain facts by assuming the existence and meaning of certain other facts on the same level of being with the facts we are investigating, and then explaining these facts in turn by the facts with which we began. We are presupposing God, not merely another fact of the universe. If God is to come into contact with us at all it is natural that the initiative must be with him. And this will also apply to the very question about the relation of God to us. Accordingly, it is only on God’s own testimony that we can know anything about him." Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, Chapter 15 The Method of Christian Theistic Epistemology
 
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Chinchilla

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Thanks for the video link. I'm not terribly worried about language. I will watch it, however, I would much rather have a back and forth with an actual person though to get a sense for the position and ask questions etc.

Peace

But it will be pointless and look like spam , my next 10-20 posts with you using this method would have " is that true ? " question or " how do you know that ? " untill we would get to the bottom of your presuppositions that you need to call yourself God in order to make truth claims .
 
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But it will be pointless and look like spam , my next 10-20 posts with you using this method would have " is that true ? " question or " how do you know that ? " untill we would get to the bottom of your presuppositions that you need to call yourself God in order to make truth claims .

Don't get me wrong, I like Sye Ten, but more often than not, his exposition of the method is not nuanced, where it has value is for popularizing to laymen because his version is greatly condensed and to a point, so to the point and condensed as to being generic (the downside). But he is doing it on a street level (where emotions are high), which is a different audience, so I get it. Sometimes it's helpful just to try and get people to think, in doing so, there may come nagging thoughts which will not leave the person alone.

Something a Christian can appreciate about Sye Ten, is that he demonstrates that a Christian does not need a Phd in Apologetics to defend the faith effectively. A Christian need not try to learn everything about every religion and cult and heresy (which altogether probably number in the thousands) to defend their faith. In fact, If it were possible to learn them all, I think it would be impossible to retain in memory answers to every religion, cult, and heresy for any length of time, even for a Professor specializing in such, where the job compells the mind to stay focused.
 
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Chinchilla

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Don't get me wrong, I like Sye Ten, but more often than not, his exposition of the method is not nuanced, where it has value is for popularizing to laymen because his version is greatly condensed and to a point, so to the point and condensed as to being generic (the downside). But he is doing it on a street level (where emotions are high), which is a different audience, so I get it. Sometimes it's helpful just to try and get people to think, in doing so, there may come nagging thoughts which will not leave the person alone.

Yea but he is right , if the power of Holy Spirit is not enought for somebody to believe you as human being can't really add anything to it.
Knowing from my personal example , untill I said okay im done then the gospel was preached to me , first I had to be really "tortured" untill I gave up my pride .
I even prayer sinner prayer as Kent Hovind asked to with him on some of his tapes and it was not enought at that time .

In reality everybody knows God exist but they have something which is not allowing them to trust him , be it pride or maybe a theory like evolution , we like doctors remove such worldviews showing the superiority of Christianity compared to them and heal a person with the gospel , we do not leave them in thier ruined worldview alone that would be sad thing to do . :234:
 
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Athée

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One common objection is circular reasoning, on my blog, I put together a collection of quotes from Dr. Van Til pertaining to this objection. There's also a helpful article by Dr. Richard Pratt to be found where he answers common objections.

Here are a few short but to the point quotes without the greater context:

"The only alternative to “circular reasoning” as engaged in by Christians, no matter on what point they speak, is that of reasoning on the basis of isolated facts and isolated minds, with the result that there is no possibility of reasoning at all. Unless as sinners we have an absolutely inspired Bible, we have no absolute God interpreting reality for us, and unless we have an absolute God interpreting reality for us, there is no true interpretation at all.

This is not to deny that there is a true interpretation up to a point by those who do not self-consciously build upon the self-conscious God of Scripture as their ultimate reference point. Non-believers often speak the truth in spite of themselves. But we are not now concerned with what men do in spite of themselves. We are concerned to indicate that the absolute distinction between true and false must be maintained when a self-consciously adopted monotheistic and a self-consciously adopted theistic point of view confront one another.

We may now first show what the Scripture says about personal revelation, then what it says about scriptural revelation, in order to see that plenary inspiration is involved in these two.” – Cornelius Van Til, Systematic Theology Chapter 12 The Inspiration of Scripture

"To admit one’s own presuppositions and to point out the presuppositions of others is therefore to maintain that all reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning. The starting-point, the method, and the conclusion are always involved in one another.” – Cornelius Van Til, Apologetics, Chapter 4 The Problem of Method

"The charge is made that we engage in circular reasoning. Now if it be called circular reasoning when we hold it necessary to presuppose the existence of God, we are not ashamed of it because we are firmly convinced that all forms of reasoning that leave God out of account will end in ruin. Yet we hold that our reasoning cannot fairly be called circular reasoning, because we are not reasoning about and seeking to explain facts by assuming the existence and meaning of certain other facts on the same level of being with the facts we are investigating, and then explaining these facts in turn by the facts with which we began. We are presupposing God, not merely another fact of the universe. If God is to come into contact with us at all it is natural that the initiative must be with him. And this will also apply to the very question about the relation of God to us. Accordingly, it is only on God’s own testimony that we can know anything about him." Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, Chapter 15 The Method of Christian Theistic Epistemology

So it seems like you have an externalist account of justification based on the interaction of your reson with the reality (that is to say,true in your worldview) of God, that's totally fine. I also have an externalist theory of justification based on the interaction of reality with our senses and our reason. So we both have these externalist views, the most useful feature of both being that they sidestep the infinite regress problem.
So now what? If God exists as you describe him, you are justified in believing the conclusions of your reason and your senses. If the causal story I'm telling about reality and evolutionary reliabalism is true, then I am justified in believing the conclusions of my reason and my senses. The question then is... I wonder which narrative, if any, is actually true.

That would be my initial question for you having read the above. Thanks again for all the links, you are definitely doing most of the work in this conversation, I'm just reading up on things you have already gone to the effort of vetting and collecting. Thank you :)
 
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Athée

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But it will be pointless and look like spam , my next 10-20 posts with you using this method would have " is that true ? " question or " how do you know that ? " untill we would get to the bottom of your presuppositions that you need to call yourself God in order to make truth claims .

I am more interested in having a good conversation and a hands on experience of the method than in providing good formatting for the thread :)

I would sincerely appreciate going through this with you if it is something you are willing to do.

Peace
 
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Athée

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Still hoping our presup participants will participate in practicing the path prescribed by presupositional apologetics ...

But just in case a larger pool will have more fish willing to bite, I'm going to post a similar thread to the philosophy debate forum.

I will keep an eye here in case we get a taker and I sincerely hope we do :)
Peace
Athée
 
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DogmaHunter

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From what I can understand about it, presupposition apologetics is taking what you know about the Bible (your presuppositions) and using it to prove the Bible.

Isn't that the very definition of circular reasoning?
 
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HitchSlap

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I can give you a video about such so you can get Idea of what it is .
Might have strong language so 16+ , some teenagers are cursing left and right nowdays .

Sye Ten is insufferable. I've seen better dialogues with 7th. graders.
 
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Athée

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Sye Ten is insufferable. I've seen better dialogues with 7th. graders.

I've seen some of his stuff that gives me a fairly low view of how he dialogues but occasionally there is something, usually when he is talking to believers that shows he is not always like that and can have a good conversation.
 
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