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Presuppositions and Truth: Part I

December 14, 2011 By 8 Comments

Exposition Concerning Presuppositions I

 

Most of my errors are errors of assumption (Hall of Fame Quarterback Fran Tarkenton).

All scientific observation is to some extent interpreted through a paradigm. However neutral he or she might pretend to be, the scientist always filters data through a set of unspoken (or unconscious) presuppositions. Perfect objectivity is impossible, at least for mere mortals. Yet some persist in claiming that science gives us an objective, unfiltered view of the world. For scientists are not immune to the influence of their own beliefs and values as they do their research and theory formulation (James Spiegel: The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief).

 

Varied Use of the Term Presupposition

 

 He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (Colossians1:15-17).

 

The term “presupposition” has developed in various categories of philosophy (including in the branch of pragmatic linguistics) as an assumption concerning reality. It can also be thought of as the back-setting belief involving an assertion, for this belief is assumed and understood in a communication act. This use is similar in some ways to my use, but with important differences. Nonetheless, an exposition on linguistic use will help the reader better understand its employment within an ontological basis.

 

Notice how these linguistic presuppositions function:

 

•   I stopped attending the opera.

This statement presupposes I have been to the opera before.

 

A necessary precondition for my discontinuing the act of going to the opera is that I must have attended an opera previously.

 

One of the most remarkable aspects about arguing from presupposition is that the negation of an assertion does not affect its truth. In linguistics one can assert:

 

•   I need to eat again.

•   I do not need to eat again.

 

Notice that both of the aforementioned assertions, the affirmation and the negation, presuppose that I had eaten previously. Thus one can see that a presupposition is differentiated from what is implicated or what can entail from the assertion.

 

•   My lawn is green.

•   My lawn is not green.

 

Both statements presuppose I have grass; if true both statements require that I have a lawn.

 

If one says that your car looks like a Ford, yet your car is a Chevy, his mistaken assertion presupposes that you own a car. Regardless of whether he was correct concerning the trade name of your car, he still presupposes that you own a car. In addition to linguistic presuppositions, there are epistemic presuppositions: things one must assume within the knowledge enterprise (the laws of logic, moral law, and predication).

 

Presuppositions and Christian Truth

 

 Unbelievers “are presupposing the Lord whenever they claim to possess any knowledge, discern any truth, use logic, etc.”  (Steve R. Scrivener: Speaking the Truth in Love).

 

Helm notes: “We all have presuppositions, the non-Christian as well as the Christian, the Islamist, the Mormon, the secularist, and Uncle Tom Cobbly and All. Another word for ‘presupposition’ in this sense would be ‘premise’ or ‘assumption.’ So we start our arguments, all of them, from premises, or from assumptions, things we take for granted. An assumption may simply be that, an assumption, taken to be true for the sake of the argument. But it may also be something that the arguer holds to be true. We all have such assumptions, from the least of us unto the greatest, matters which we take to be true and which form the basis of other claims that we make. Besides, we all have agendas too” (Paul Helm: HelmsDeep.blogSpot.com).

 

Presupposition = narrative = worldview (Helm: HelmsDeep).

What I do know of myself, I know by Thee enlightening me (Augustine: Confessions 1:1).

 

I employ non-lexical or non-linguistic presuppositional (ontological: relating to being, nature, ontic status; and not to be confused with a utterly different argument such as an ontological argument for the existence of God) focus in my arguments for the existence of God as I amble through epistemological and ontological fields to contend for the truth of the CWV (for more see the E-book here). I contrast non-theistic presuppositions with Christian presuppositions using ultimate rational standards such as the laws of logic, predication, and moral absolutes. I often employ an ontological TA (o’er, not to be confused with an Anselm’s Argument form) that seeks to prove the necessity of God’s ontological status to account for some essential element within human experience.

 

The prefix “pre” in presupposition does not concern a temporal position, but I use it as a position of preeminence, superiority, and importance. It concerns a belief that takes preeminence, the more ultimate criterion or standard providing the conditions for intelligibility; the ultimate presupposition is the triune God as He supplies the a priori essentials to make sense of human experience.

 

It’s hard to see the rainbow through dark glasses (Johnny Cash).

 

James Spiegel continues to expose the biases of atheists inasmuch as they suffer from “paradigm-induced blindness. Their theoretical framework prevents them from seeing the truth, even when it is right in front of them” (Spiegel: The Making of an Atheist). Atheists are rationally and ethically blind in their assessment of Christian theism (CT).

 

K. Scott Oliphint echoes previous scholars as he notes: “Given any fact or experience, it (TA) asks the question as to the presuppositions behind that fact, and which make it possible.” Michael Butler adds that “only the Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of human experience. That is, only the Christian view of God, creation, providence, revelation, and human nature can make sense of the world in which we live.”

 

John Frame contends: “Among all the sources of divine revelation (including nature, history, human beings in God’s image), Scripture plays a central role. Indeed, though the point cannot be argued in detail here, my view is that Scripture is the supremely authoritative, inerrant word of God, the divinely authored, written constitution of thechurchofJesus Christ. Scripture is therefore the foundational authority for all of human life including apologetics. As the ultimate authority, the very word of God, it provides the foundational justifications for all our reasoning, without itself being subject to prior justification.” Thus the complete CWV, in principle, must be presupposed for the intelligibility of human experience.

 

What’s the condition of the possibility of the world being intelligible? God (Bernard Lonergan: Intellectuals Speak Out About God).

 

The skeptic Tom Paine asked Benjamin Franklin what he thought of the book he wrote that aimed to undercut Christianity. The only reply fromFranklinwas: “Tom, he who spits against the wind spits in his own face.” And the non-believers who attack the CWV have more than epistemic spittle on their faces given that they have to presuppose the truth of CT even in their attacks against it.

 

Stephen Prothero rightly notes (concerning judges) that when it comes to scholars and their biases, there are “only two types: those who acknowledge their biases and therefore try not to succumb to them, and those who are ignorant of their biases and therefore succumb to them unwittingly” (USA Today, 5/17/10). All men have their own controlling presuppositions; no one is truly detached but is empowered by a priori biases and engrained assumptions.

 

Recognizing One’s Rational and Ethical Predispositions

 

Belief in God is ultimately, of course, the presupposition that controls even one’s concept of reason itself (John Frame, DKG).

The man of science is a poor philosopher (Albert Einstein).

 

Dr. Lennox presses the need to recognize one’s biases and presuppositions when looking at the world as well as science: “What about bias? No one can escape it–neither author nor reader. We are all biased in the sense that we all have a worldview that consists of our answers and partial answers to the questions that the universe and life throw at us. Our worldviews may or may not be even consciously formulated, but they are there nonetheless. Our worldviews are … shaped by our experience and reflection” (John Lennox: God’s Undertaker).

 

On pre-theoretical commitments concerning science Michael Polanyi notes: “These maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premises of science but I prefer to call them our scientific beliefs. These premises or beliefs are embodied in a tradition, the tradition of science.” Foundational beliefs are important, essential, and cannot be avoided.

 

Admitting our biases is the best way towards rational discussion (John Lennox: Expelled).

 

All men approach the pursuit of truth or science with rational precommitments and personal biases. The wise man recognizes this and the honest man admits it. I have a rational precommitment to the CWV forasmuch as it is true and it provides the necessary pre-essentials to account for knowledge.

 

Greg L. Bahnsen’s Definition of Presupposition

 

 

Presuppositions form a wide-ranging foundational perspective or starting point in terms of which everything else we believe is interpreted, in terms of which everything else we believe is evaluated and interrelated. And that’s why presuppositions are said to have the greatest “authority” in one’s thinking. Presuppositions will turn out to be the least negotiable beliefs a person has. People will grant to their presuppositions the highest degree of immunity to revision (Greg L. Bahnsen).

 

Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction (David Hume).

 

The contrary of the the worldview resting upon the True God implies a contradiction inasmuch as the denial of this WV leaves one without the ontic (ontic: relating to ontology; relating to existence, being) foundation to ground immutable universals such as the laws of thought and moral laws, which are required for knowledge. The denial of knowledge (or its ground) is a self-contradicting endeavor.

 

McDurmon summarizes the ontic necessity of God to account for the laws of logic: “From the biblical point of view we learn that God makes orderly experience possible because of His own self-consistent, self-authoritative, and faithful nature… Man must think God’s thoughts after Him” (Joel McDurmon: Biblical Logic: In Theory and Practice).

 

The God of Christian Theism

 

 

The God I profess is revealed in the Old and New Testaments and His person and divine nature is summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith: Chapter Two, Of God, and of the Holy Trinity:

 

I.          There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal most just and terrible in his judgments; hating all sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty.

 

II.        God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them; he is the alone foundation of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom, are all things; and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever himself pleases. In his sight all things are open and manifest; his knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature; so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain. He is most holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands. To him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience he is pleased to require of them.

 

III.       In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

 

Herein my apologetic foundation is the biblical worldview revealed by the Lord God Almighty of the Bible and not any other professed god or gods.

Part 2 will be posted later this week.

see My book that contends for Christian theism HERE

Filed Under: Apologetics, Christian Philosophy, Presuppositional Epistemology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Atheism Built upon Empiricism Cannot Supply the Foundation for Knowledge

September 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Empiricism Fails to Deliver the Ground for Knowledge
by Mike Robinson


Many people say that they cannot believe anything unless they can see it for themselves; this is one usage of empiricism. Many atheists (atheism as their metaphysical position) hold to empiricism as their epistemic base (position on knowledge) for their worldview. They declare that unless something can be tested empirically, using the five senses, it is not true. The main problem with such an assertion is that this assertion cannot itself be tested by any of the senses. Thus it is a self-conflagrating assertion.

Another problem is that our senses are not one-hundred-percent accurate. They are mostly reliable, but cannot be completely trusted. St. Augustine pointed out that a straight oar appears bent when it is in the water. Many of us, as we drive our cars during a hot day, see mirages on the road. If an elephant is a quarter mile up the road and I put my thumb in front of my eyes, the beast seems to be no larger than my thumb.

The Hand is Quicker than the Eye

In Las Vegas there are dozens of magicians who make a good living by fooling the empirical senses of their audiences; the hand is quicker than the eye. Our eyes and our other senses can deceive us. We cannot base our world and life view on these senses unaided; nobody can.

Skeptics who claim that they only believe in what they see do not and cannot follow that philosophy consistently. Their use of logic, induction, and mathematics is not intelligible by the senses alone; these are immaterial entities that the materialist uses every day. To understand this world, God must be presupposed—whether the materialist realizes it or not. The notion that truth may be ascertained merely through the senses cannot even justify that two plus two will always be four in all places or that all animals will die; for the reason that no human can be simultaneously in all places where two plus two occur, nor can any human witness the death of all animals. The believer can trust the basic reliability of the senses only because an infallible God, who knows all things, has revealed that we can. The reason that scientists often repeat their tests and experiments hundreds of times is because the senses are occasionally unreliable. Men of science and industry have built instruments as well as machines to help bypass the inconsistency and unreliability of the senses. The five senses are not always reliable because human beings are not infallible and absent the divine ability to possess universal knowledge. Definite knowledge requires a man to depend on a God who is perfect, infallible, and omniscient.

Can One Really See an Object?

The five senses can provide awareness of and information about only some attributes of an object. This truth, conjoined with the practicality that numerous people claim that they only believe in what they can see, makes for an interesting discovery. Considering that in a way, under their non-Christian worldview, men cannot see any object. Human eyesight cannot give direct and immediate awareness and understanding of any object. Eyesight can provide information on some aspects and attributes of a given object. But only God can see all atoms, and only He can fully understand all protons and electrons. He has exact and exhaustive knowledge of the color, texture, size, weight, density, and complete physical makeup of all objects in the universe from a perfect perspective. No human can have exhaustive and perfect knowledge of even one of the attributes of a material article; hitherto some want to trust their eyesight and senses above the God who understands all things.

The senses are generally reliable; however we have justified knowledge because of God’s revelation. We must have a transcendent source that “sees” everything and reveals to us that the senses are basically reliable. The problem comes when people reject God’s word and construct a worldview based on their senses alone. Senses can routinely deceive. Professional illusionists get paid large salaries to fool our eyesight. Conversations between husbands and wives can quickly reveal how unreliable the sense of hearing can be. Many taste-test studies have demonstrated that the sense of taste is not always reliable. The Associated Press reported that surgical teams leave clamps, sponges, and other tools inside 1,500 patients nationwide each year (http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/archive/index.php/t-1969.html). These are highly trained teams with large potential lawsuits looming over them, and yet their senses fail them at times. One cannot construct a reliable worldview based exclusively on the senses, as many scientists attempt to do. It is epistemically unmanageable for them to avoid the truth of God in view of the fact that all their theories, notes, and scientific conclusions utilize the laws of logic. Logic is immaterial, universal, and invariant; it presupposes God.

Empiricism Flops

Empiricism fails as a worldview every time you stub your toe or trip over a rock since this helps demonstrate the sometimes unreliability of our sight; our senses are normally reliable, but we cannot build a worldview on their untrustworthiness. God alone is the necessary truth condition for an intelligible worldview which includes the basic trustworthiness of our five senses.

Atheists can be rational because they borrow rational essentials from the Christian Worldview (CWV); the atheistic WV fails to account for the laws of logic that the CWV underwrites all the while borrowing them out of necessity.

Analysis of anti-theistic materialism demonstrates that it is self-nullifying inasmuch as it fails to give what it does not possess. The material cosmos, as a particular thing, is devoid of a foundation for eternal invariant universals; one cannot hang one’s house on one’s paintings, but one hangs one’s paintings on one’s house. God is the immovable truth required to hang knowledge claims, including atheistic claims.

The Rational Pre-essentials for Knowledge

I will employ a transcendental analysis by determining what the rational pre-essentials are for knowledge and understanding human experience; what must be true to be able to account for intelligibility. The triune God is the transcendental necessity who provides the preconditions for knowledge of reality. Mere men, devoid of immutability and universal rational attainment, cannot supply the transcendental conditions that are needed for the Law of Non-contradiction (LNC), love, and knowledge.

To rightly understand reality one must have universals to generalize the particulars. This implies that the sheer anthropology of atheism cannot supply the general and universal realities that must be present for the necessary and unavoidable transcendental conditions listed beforehand.

Some people claim that knowledge is impossible. Nonetheless if knowledge is impossible, one could not know that knowledge is impossible because that is a knowledge claim. The intelligibility of human experience requires God. Christianity is a WV that provides human reason an unchanging foundation for knowledge. Atheism, naturalism, and skepticism all fail to furnish a foundation for the LNC; thus they cannot provide the permanent footing for knowledge. They can only offer an irrational and incongruous WV.

Unless one believes in God, one cannot account for anything in the universe. God is the underlying and infinite ground for all knowledge, proof, evidence, and logic. It is impossible for God not to exist. He is the truth condition for all knowledge because all human knowledge requires the use of unchanging universals. The omniscient, immaterial, and unchanging God alone provides the a priori essentials for the use of nonphysical, universal, and unchanging universals. Non-believing thought cannot supply the necessary pre-environment for knowledge, thus they fall into futility.

“Of all the offspring of time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome” (Charles Mackay).

The Christian worldview is true because of the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary of the CWV implies a contradiction inasmuch as the denial of the CWV leaves one without the ontic (ontic: relating to ontology; relating to existence, being) foundation to ground immutable universals such as the laws of thought and moral laws, which are required for knowledge. The denial of knowledge (or its ground) is a self-contradicting endeavor.
For More see my Innovative book that refutes Atheism: Truth, Knowledge, and the Reason for God

Filed Under: Covenantal Apologetics, Presuppositional Epistemology, Reformed Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In Defense of the Faith by Cornelius Van Til: Book Review – Draft

December 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Cornelius Van Til’s “In Defense of the Faith: Volume II: A Survey of Christian Epistemology” book review:
I heard of a man who woke up one night at the sound of his car being taken. He ran down stairs, and it was not being stolen; it was being towed. He stopped the tow truck driver and wanted to know why he was taking his car. The tow truck driver told him that they were filming a movie on the street, and they needed the space. The owner of the car wanted to know how he would have found his car after it had been towed and parked in an unknown location. The tow truck driver told him that he would put a note on the car. That of course would not have done the befuddled owner any good. For the car would have been lost, and a note on a lost car is also lost. And that is the problem with the unsaved person. He is lost, and he cannot use his own autonomous reason or experience to find his way to truth. He is lost, and his autonomous reason is lost with him. The only way he can find the truth is through an objective unchanging source. That is God. God is there, and He is absolute.
And Dr. Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987; professor Westminster Theological Seminary; OPC minister) in “In Defense Of the Faith Volume II: A Survey of Christian Epistemology” provides a potent epistemological resource for Christians. This work was used for “studies and student syllabi” and later published as a book by P & R. Van Til’s work was groundbreaking and provided the ground work for an influential school of apologetics known: Presuppositional Apologetics, Covenantal Apologetics, and Van Tilian Apologetics which use the Transcendental Argument of the Existence of God as a crucial apologetic argument.
In Survey of Christian Epistemology one finds chapters on:
- Epistemological Terminology
- Greek Epistemology
- Mediaeval Epistemology
- Lutheranism – Antitheism
- The Subject-Subject Relation
- The Method of Christian Epistemology
- And other pertinent essays
Van Til writes: “It is the plan of God that gives any fact meaning in terms of the plan of God. The whole meaning of any fact is exhausted by its position in and relation to the plan of God. This implies that every fact is related to every other fact. God’s plan is a unit (p 6). Thus facts are not brute facts but require and presuppose God for their comprehension. Van Til adds: “We seek to implicate ourselves more deeply into a comprehension of God’s plan in and with every fact that we investigate” (p 7). A particular fact needs the Christian Worldview for its proper understanding because a particular cannot be the lens to understand a universal: “Thus starting any investigation the general precedes the particular” (Cornelius Van Til: In Defense of the Faith Volume II: A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p 7).
When unbelievers use reason, they presuppose and rely on God, even as they are attempting to disprove God. The denial of God presupposes that God lives. Without presupposing the God of the Bible, one cannot rationally assert anything. As Van Til demonstrated, the atheist is like the little child on her fathers lap that slaps her dad in the face, but in order for her to slap her father, she must sit on his lap. And the atheist, as he attempts to refute the existence of God, must rest on the presupposition that God lives. God must be his presupposition forasmuch as he uses logic and reason to attempt to slap the Lord. Yet as an atheist, he cannot account for reason. When he attacks God using logical thought and right reason, he borrows from the Christian worldview, which alone can account for reason. So anti-theism presupposes theism. Attacking the existence of God, with rational thought, actually depends on that which they are attempting to disprove. The atheist tries to prove that only the physical world is there, all the while using nonphysical reason. All intellectual warring against the Lord presupposes His existence. We do not have to prove that God exists, everything in the universe shouts His existence. We should allow the anti-theist to keep talking, and demonstrate that for his ranting to be rational, he must presuppose that God lives.
Van Til notes: “Thus the antithesis is once more that between those for whom the final center of reference in knowledge lies in man, and those for whom the final center of reference for knowledge lies in God, as this God speaks in Scripture” (p 9). Furthermore he writes: “Our conception of God controls the investigation of every fact. We are certain, as certain as our conviction of the truth of the entire Christian position, that certain `facts’ will never be discovered,” including the discovery of “a gradual transition from the non-rational to the rational” ( p 7). Remember that the atheist borrows from the Christian worldview when he uses and applies reason. Atheists testify that they adore reason and logic. That is the rationale behind Robert Ingersoll assertion: “Upon every brain reason should be enthroned as king.” Skeptics do not want to bow to God, so they will bow down to an idol, such as human reason. This creates a big problem for them: Deny God and you cannot account for reason. A great example of this is what happened in the debate between evangelist Ray Comfort and atheist Ron Barrier. Mr. Barrier accidentally picked up Comfort’s glasses while making his case for atheism. Comfort in his response said to the crowd, “If you are an atheist, you are wearing someone else’s glasses.” That is what all atheists and unbelievers do: They borrow from the Christian worldview whenever they use reason or morality. These are nonphysical dynamics that the atheist cannot justify; only the Christian WV can. Atheists, when they use and apply logic or moral law, are borrowing our glasses. The job of the Christian is to take the glasses off their head and let them know, without Christianity, they cannot see anything at all.
C.S. Lewis’ notion that I believe in God as I believe in the Sun; not so much that I see the Sun, it’s more like without the Sun, I cannot see anything at all. The only lens that can make sense of the world and give us vision is God’s revealed word. Dr. Van Til on the importance of presuppositions and epistemic methods: “And this difference between the Christian and his opponents comes to the fore in the method of investigation of facts. The anti-Christian holds that any sort of fact will appear that could disprove the ultimacy of the fact of God, and therefore of what he has revealed himself and his plan for the world through Christ in the Scriptures” (p 8). “God’s knowledge of the facts of the universe must be the standard of our knowledge” (p 200). “We must seek to determine what presuppositions are necessary to any object of knowledge in order that it may be intelligible to us” (p 201).
Van Til on Scripture as an epistemic absolute: “We should accept the Scripture testimony about itself. If we did anything else we would not be accepting Scripture as absolute. The only alternative then to bringing in a God who testifies of himself and upon whose testimony we are wholly dependent, is not to bringing in God at all. And not to bring in God at all spells nothing but utter ruin for knowledge” (p 202).
Finally he sums up: “The final question is in which framework or on which view of reality–the Christian or the non-Christian–the law of contradiction can have application to any fact. The non-Christian rejects the Christian view out of hand…. Then when asked to furnish a foundation for the law of contradiction, he can offer nothing but the idea of contingency” (pp. 204-205). “We must hold that the position of our opponent has in reality been reduced to self-contradiction when it is shown to be hopelessly opposed to the Christian theistic concept of God. … The conception of God is necessary for the intelligible interpretation of any fact … that it is necessary for all facts and for the laws of thought” (Cornelius Van Til: In Defense of the Faith Volume II: A Survey of Christian Epistemology, pp. 206).
For a new and interesting Presuppositional Apologetic book that refutes anti-theism see:
And a book that utilizes the transcendental argument as it contends against World Religions see: “One Way to God: Christian Philosophy and Presuppositional Apologetics Examine World Religions” type in ASIN#: 1432722956
Prove the existence of God.
Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Book Review: Van Til and Evidence – Thomas Notaro

September 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Thirty years ago, Thom Notaro wrote a much talked about book (in Presuppositional circles) called “Van Til & The Use of Evidence,” in which he argued that there is a valuable role for evidences in Van Til’s apologetic. This small volume is precise, readable, and great for the nontechnical student of apologetics.

Notaro states that he aims to offer originality “in expression and application, not an originality of commitment meant to contrast with Van Til’s position. As far as I am concerned, the implications of his system are so rich and pervasive that there is no need to step outside the framework within which those implications arise” (p. 9).

The author rightly asserts that everything in the cosmos is evidence for the existence of God. He writes: “There are no facts other than God’s facts. To substitute any other interpretation of the world for God’s interpretation is to `exchange the truth of God for a lie’ (Rom. 1:25). Nevertheless, it is what sinners do with a vengeance: instead of knowledge of God, they prefer futile speculations” (p. 80).

He adds that facts and their proper interpretation depend and presuppose God as he quotes Van Til: “…without the presupposition of the God of Christianity, we cannot even interpret one fact correctly” (p. 81).

The apologist should utilize evidence within the Christian worldview because all facts presuppose Christian Theism (CT). He adds: “So, the Christian apologist may begin with any fact because, no matter what the facts he wishes to discuss, the stakes are ultimately the same. In every case, CT is in question. Do the facts belong to God or do they not? The challenge for the apologist is to treat the facts in a way that calls the God of Scripture–including the Christian system–into view” (p. 86).

Furthermore he stresses that whether “we are able to bring CT to a more full expression or only to a partial one, the goal is to express the biblical system through the facts. … Facts should serve as manifestations of the Christian system” (p. 87). Additionally he maintains, as a presuppositionalist, the evidences “call all men to acknowledge the Triune God, the final reference point for all meaning an truth” (p. 95).

Chapters include:
- Legitimacy of Evidences- Evidences, Apologetics and Theology
- Evidence and Proof- Presuppositional Verification
- Biblical Examples of the Use of Evidence
- Resurrection Evidences at Work.

Notaro ends his brief volume with this applicatory quote from Van Til: “Men have not done justice by the facts, by the evidence of God’s presence before their eyes, unless they burst out into praise of him who has made all things” (p. 127).
This petite treatise is a marvelous work. At every point the reader is treated to presuppositional insights and judgments of a Van Tilian thinker who knows how to explain and apply facts and evidences within Van Til’s apologetic system. If you are a presuppositionalist who aspires to employ the massive amount of evidence for CT, then this brief, clear, and intriguing introduction is for you.

A Van Tilian Book that employs Evidence and Proof see:
[[ASIN:1420827626 God Does Exist!: Defending the Faith using Presuppositional Apologetics, Evidence, and the Impossibility of the Contrary]]
—-
A new book that contends for the existence of God utilizing moral absolutes see:[[ASIN:1598007661 There Are Moral Absolutes: How to Be Absolutely Sure That Christianity Alone Supplies]]or my other book

[[ASIN:1419620355 "The Necessary Existence of God: The Proof of Christianity Through Presuppositional Apologetics"]] by Michael Robinson

Prove the existence of God.
Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Review: Christian-theistic evidences by Van Til

September 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There’s an old saying about knowing what is true: Seeing is believing; I will not believe it unless I see it with my own eyes! There are many variations on that theme from empiricism. On a college campus, I heard a more pretentious demand: “If God exists, He should show Himself to me and do a spectacular miracle. Then I will believe!”
But in “Christian Theistic Evidences,” presuppositional apologist Cornelius Van Til refutes empiricism and offers a view that not only affirms evidences, but supplies the proper epistemic framework to account for and interpret evidence and facts.

Van Til opens: “Evidence is a subdivision of apologetics … and is the vindication of Christian theism (CT). … CT must be defended against non-theistic science. It is this that we must seek to do in the course of Christian evidences” (p. i). He goes on to contend that “we believe the facts of the universe are unaccounted for except upon the basis of CT. In other words, facts and interpretation of facts cannot be separated. It is impossible to discuss any particular fact except in relation to some principle of interpretation.

The real question about facts is, therefore, what kind of universal can give the best account to the facts. Or rather, the real question is which universal can state or give meaning to any fact” (p. i). “We hold that there is only one true such universal, namely, the God of Christianity. Consequently, we hold that without the presupposition of the God of Christianity we cannot even interpret one fact correctly” (p. ii). Facts are important but brute facts are unintelligible.

One must have the ontic foundation of the triune God to furnish the immutable universals to give meaning to any fact. Van Til argues that the “chief battle between Christianity and science is not about a large number of individual facts, but about the principles that control science in its work” (p. iii). Can a materialistic view of science posit the pre-essentials for the epistemic tools to do science (immaterial changeless universals)? It’s not possible. Only CT can furnish these a priori necessities such as moral law and the laws of logic which are required to implement the scientific method.

Later Van Til unleashes Hume’s skepticism to refute Butler and other empirical minded apologists. Van Til doesn’t reject facts and evidence, he only exposes the weakness of apologists who press brute facts without the web of Christian presuppositions and principles required to discover, analyze, and apply evidence.

Hume, on the ground of empiricism, proves one cannot know the future from the past (p. 21). Hume argues against the validity of Induction, yet this epistemic club can be turned against Hume. How does Hume, within his empirical worldview (WV), know that the language and its meaning he uses are going to be the same in the future as with the past? How does he know that the logic he directs against Induction (and other notions he disputes) in the future will be like the past? How does he know, under his WV, he will be the same person in the future as the past? He doesn’t. And the future can be as little as ten minutes or even one minute. Hume not only refutes all non-CT WV’s, he stultifies himself. Hume’s skepticism can be used like a hammer against atheism, empiricism, materialism, and naturalism, but it can also be employed against Hume. Hume just takes the future of math, logic, sense impressions, personhood, etc. for granted as he borrows CT’s epistemic tools. Only CT can stand up against such epistemic hammer blows.

Not only that, CT alone furnishes the epistemic environment to make the discussion intelligible. “Every fact and every law in the created universe continues to exist by virtue of the providence of God” (p. 55). “The Bible is the absolute authority by which we seek to interpret life” (p. 53). All facts require the rational pre-essentials that only the principles and framework of CT can furnish. Find and examine any fact anywhere and this process requires that which only God can supply: immaterial unchanging universals. A fact is what it is: a=a (the logical law of identity); furthermore this true fact ought to be held as true: this requires the moral law forbidding lying. These nonmaterial immutable universals are required to process and interpret any fact and only CT can furnish the ontic foundation for them.

see my Presuppositional Apologetic books:

God Does Exist!: Defending the faith using presuppositional apologetics, evidence, and the impossibility of the contrary

or my new E-Book Reality and the Folly of Atheism HERE

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Book Review: The Defense of the Faith by Cornelius Van Til

April 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The Defense of the Faith (Paperback) Cornelius Van Til was born in 1895, in the Netherlands and at the age of ten his family moved to Indiana. Later Van Til earned a Th.M. and a Ph.D. “The Defense of the Faith” is part of Van Til’s groundbreaking presuppositional apologetic method. This volume is essential for any Christian philosopher and apologist. In this treatise, the author aims to press the most scripturally faithful and effectual apologetic method to defend the Faith and present the Triune God to the lost. Van Til distinguishes his system from that of RCC, neo-orthodoxy of Barth, and others.

Van Til writes: “The whole problem of knowledge has constantly been that of bringing the one and the many together. When man looks about him and within him, he sees that there is a great variety of facts. The question that comes up at once is whether there is any unity in this variety, whether there is one principle in accordance with which all these many things appear and occur. All non-Christian thought, if it has utilized the idea of a supra-mundane existence at all, has used this supra-mundane existence as furnishing only the unity or the a priori aspect of knowledge, while it has maintained that the a posteriori aspect of knowledge is something that is furnished by the universe.” He adds for one to have any knowledge that “… there must be in God an absolute system of knowledge” (p 61). Furthermore he presses the necessity of scripture: “But I do, of course, confess that what Scripture teaches may properly be spoken of as a system of truth. God identifies the Scriptures as his Word. And he himself, as he tells us, exists as an internally self-coherent being. His revelation of himself to man cannot be anything but internally coherent” (p. 205).

Many have enthusiastically embraced his forceful apologetic as he advocates: “The natural man must be blasted out of his hideouts… the Reformed apologist throws down the gauntlet and challenges his opponent to a duel of life and death from the start.” Van Til defines some important terms: “Philosophy, as usually defined, deals with a theory of reality, with a theory of knowledge, and with a theory of ethics. That is to say philosophies usually undertake to present a life and world view. They deal not only with that which man can directly experience by means of his senses but also, and ofttimes especially, with the presuppositions of experience. In short, they deal with that which Christian theology speaks of as God. On the other hand Christian theology deals not only with God; it deals also with the world…. Philosophy and science deal more especially with man in his relation to the cosmos and theology deals more especially with man in his relation to God. But this is only a matter of degree.”

Van Til taught, inspired, and mentored many erudite scholars. Quotes from some of the brightest:
William Edgar states: “Van Til showed the necessity of knowing God as a basis for knowing anything at all.”
John Frame opines: “Van Til’s apologetics is essentially simple, however complicated its elaborations. It makes two basic assertions: (1) that human beings are obligated to presuppose God in all of their thinking, and (2) that unbelievers resist this obligation in every aspect of thought and life.” (Westminster Theological Journal Vol. 47, 1985).
K. Scott Oliphint asserts: “Van Til, though speaking in another context, approves of all kinds of reasoning based on the priority of revelation.”
Greg Bahnsen, a popular Van Tilian scholar and the man “atheists feared the most,” stated that “For Van Til, like Augustine, reason is not the platform (precondition) for faith, but vice versa” (Greg L Bahnsen, “Van Til’s Apologetic,” p. 54). Bahnsen adjoins: “It could be said that Van Til has labored to rid our thinking about apologetics, theology, philosophy, and evangelism of misleading dichotomies between them – polarizations that serve to overlook the ethically qualified character of man’s every intellectual ability and effort. There are to be no other gods before the face of the Lord (according to the first commandment, Ex. 20:3), no other authorities over our thinking that detract from submission to the revealed word of God. The Lord’s claim upon us, even upon our thinking and reasoning, is absolute and unchallengeable – just because He is the Lord (Rom. 3:4; 9:20; 11:33-34). Therefore, “take heed lest there shall be anyone who robs you by means of his philosophy, even vain deceit, which is after the tradition of men, after the rudimentary principles of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8). In that light, we must not artificially separate positive statement (theology) from its defense (apologetics), or separate the appeal for mental change (evangelism) from the intellectual reason for such change (apologetics), or separate general reflection upon conceptual foundations, (philosophy) from the particular content of Christian concepts (theology, apologetics). Van Til rejects each of these dichotomies in order that our thinking and scholarship will not be divided into two phases, the first being autonomous and religiously neutral, and the second being submissive to Christ and biblically faithful. For Van Til, like Augustine, reason is not the platform (precondition) for faith, but vice versa” (“Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis,” p. 54)
—

But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases (Psalms 115:3).

As a PA I also would add: A certain and simple argument for the existence of God is: Without God one cannot account for anything. God is the ground and source for the laws of logic, moral law, mathematics, and everything else in the cosmos. This is an argument that is absolutely true. The truth is simple and it is powerful. One must employ changeless universal truths when one assesses, ponders, and communicates things and their meaning in our world. Only God, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, can ground immutable universals. The great thing about employing this argument is that it grows in power when the unbeliever attacks it. The argument grows in force because the unbeliever must use the laws of logic to make his intellectual challenge. These laws of thought require God. For God alone supplies the pre-essential environment for the laws of logic. Thus every time an unbeliever rationally attacks theism he is actually demonstrating that God lives. Without God (He alone can ground the laws of logic) he cannot make any rational assertion. The old science-fiction movie that has a huge electric monster on the loose illustrates this point. The monster in this thriller grows larger and stronger every time someone uses a weapon in attempting to kill it. The monster is ready to take over America, and the President orders the army to hit it with an atomic bomb. The troops launch the bomb and as the mushroom cloud slowly starts to dissipate, when the smoke clears, they are stunned by the horror of horrors: the energy monster survived. Not only does the monster survive, he now is ten times larger. The energy monster absorbed the massive energy from the bomb. It did not get weaker, but grew in size and strength. Similarly, the unbeliever will attempt to fire intellectual weapons at this “argument from the impossibility of the contrary”(Bahnsen). Nevertheless, all their attacks will only be consumed by the truth, while the defense of the truth grows stronger and larger. There is nothing a skeptic can assert without ultimately relying on theism, since God alone provides the pre-essential environment for the laws of logic that must be utilized in their attacks. Therefore the unbeliever’s argument will always presuppose God because the unbeliever cannot supply the preconditions for the non-physical, unchanging, universal and atemporal laws of logic (God is non-physical, unchanging, universal in power and reach, and atemporal).

The triune God is the preexisting foundation for all debate, even a debate over the existence of God. Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it… Therefore let all the house of Israel know ASSUREDLY that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:24 & 36).
God Does Exist!: Defending the faith using presuppositional apologetics, evidence, and the impossibility of the contrary

Presuppositional Apologetics Examines Mormonism: How Van Til’s Apologetic Refutes Mormon Theology

One Way to God: Christian Philosophy and Presuppositional Apologetics Examine World Religions

There Are Moral Absolutes: How to Be Absolutely Sure That Christianity Alone Supplies
Also see work by James Anderson, Michael Butler, Don Collect.

Prove the existence of God.
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Book Review of Greg Bahnsen’s Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended

April 23, 2010 By 3 Comments

 

greg bahnsen stated defended reviewThe publishers bequeath eager Van Tilians a new and superb offering from the late Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen. Bahnsen, as a formal debater, was regarded as the “man atheists feared the most.” This new book, “Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended,” demonstrates some of the reasons for such an assessment. The author has been deeply missed and this volume of systematic apologetics is a blessing to all who sought a fresh resource that would be compatible with his earlier books. This precise and orderly defense of the faith was not available because it was lost. It was only recently discovered and brought to press. Bahnsen’s philosophical labor is clear, succinct, and commanding. The editors supply the brilliance of Bahnsen’s apologetic in a methodical and lucid manner (Joel McDurmon put in a lot of hard toil as Editor). This is a brand new publication that helps make Van Til’s remarkable thought accessible to ordinary believers as well as the most widely read scholars.

In this volume we have apologetic clarity and a philosophical depth illuminating issues surrounding a faithful defense of Christian theism. I encourage all to purchase this stupendous edition of Bahnsen’s scholarly toil to help equip the church to proclaim and defend the truth of the ontological Trinity.

 

Bahnsen offers many unique gems in this never-before-published volume including powerful and lengthy critiques of the apologetic systems of:

- Gordon H. Clark
- Edward Carnell
- Francis Schaeffer
- Ronald Nash (this one is brief but convincing).

Additionally he provides a plethora of Vantilian type quotes from Clark (2 ½ pages), Carnell, and Schaeffer. This alone makes “PASD” worth much more than the cost. This is an absolutely necessary apologetic resource for the active apologist.

Greg Bahnsen wrote that the unbeliever “has no intelligible place to stand, no consistent epistemology, no justification for meaningful discourse, predication, or argumentation.” Other than that, you’re fine! Bahnsen goes on to lay bare anti-theism: he writes that “the Christian worldview is true because of the impossibility of the contrary. When the perspective of God’s revelation is rejected, then the unbeliever is left in foolish ignorance because his philosophy does not provide the preconditions for knowledge and meaningful experience.” Only Christian theism can supply the pre-essentials needed for debate, evidence, and knowledge. Bahnsen asserts that “the proof that Christianity is true is that if it were not, we could not be able to prove anything.”

Bahnsen was once described as “the man atheists fear most” because of the controversy surrounding the Bahnsen-Martin debate, which was cancelled by Michael Martin.

Some quotes: “In various forms, the fundamental argument advanced by the Christian apologist is that the Christian worldview is true because of the impossibility of the contrary. When the perspective of God’s revelation is rejected, then the unbeliever is left in foolish ignorance because his philosophy does not provide the preconditions of knowledge and meaningful experience. To put it another way: the proof that Christianity is true is that if it were not, we would not be able to prove anything.” “An unbeliever is not simply an unbeliever at separate points; his antagonism is rooted in an overall philosophy (Col. 2.8) which is according to the world’s tradition; thus is an enemy of God in his mind (Col. 1.21; Jam. 4.4) and uses his mind to nullify or obviate God’s word (Mk. 7.8-13).”

“In what way does knowledge go beyond belief? Knowledge includes having justification or good reason to support whatever it is you believe. Imagine that I believe there are thirty-seven square miles in a particular city, and imagine also that it just so happens that this claim is accurate – but imagine as well that I simply got this answer by guessing (rather than doing measurements, mathematics or checking an almanac, etc.). I believed something which happened to be true, but we would not say that I had ‘knowledge’ in this case because I had no justification for what I believed. When we claim to know that something is true, we are thereby claiming to have adequate evidence, proof or good reason for it.”

“Imagine a person who comes in here tonight and argues ‘no air exists’ but continues to breathe air while he argues. Now intellectually, atheists continue to breathe – they continue to use reason and draw scientific conclusions [which assumes an orderly universe], to make moral judgments [which assumes absolute values] – but the atheistic view of things would in theory make such ‘breathing’ impossible. They are breathing God’s air all the time they are arguing against him.”
———

I would add: Suppose my wife took my i-pod off our dinning table and put it on an obscure shelf before she ate lunch. When I returned home and found it missing on the table, I phoned my wife. She said that she needed space to eat and so she put my iPod away. I asked her how I could find my iPod now that she moved it to an unknown location. She told me that she had put a post-it note on the iPod. That, of course, would not have done me, her befuddled husband any good. The portable stereo would have been hidden, and a note on a hidden stereo was lost to me until my wife informed me where she put it. Such is the problem of an unsaved person. He is lost, and cannot use his own reason or experience to find his way to truth. He is lost, and his autonomous reason is lost with him. The only way he can find the truth is through an objective, unchanging source. The God of the Bible is the unchanging rational bedrock and fountainhead.

The biblical God is the pre-necessity for self-knowledge and the intelligibility of the world. Without God, man is lost, holding his own note of a man-made holy book. Only through Yahweh and His revelation can a man be found and have an objective basis for truth. God is the absolute and transcendental necessity for the intelligibility of all human apprehension. He is the precondition for the grounding and understanding of knowledge. Buddhism, Hinduism, and atheism cannot justify knowledge or truth. If you do not presuppose the truth of God in Christ, you cannot make sense out of the cosmos and all of reality. Christianity is true not because it makes better sense, but because it alone supplies the foundation for logic; it is true because without it you cannot make sense of anything.

All other religions, philosophies, and worldviews lack the transcendentally required precondition (Yahweh) for predication, intelligibility, logic, ethics, and truth. Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Only the transcendent, aphysical, invariant, and multi-personal-unified God can provide the necessary preconditions for the transcendent, aphysical, invariant, and multi-unified laws of logic. I argue from the shoulders of giants as I press the truth that there is “absolutely certain proof for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism.

Even non-Christians presuppose its truth while they verbally reject it.” We ask the nonbeliever “what are the conditions that make thought possible?” Only the Triune God can furnish those preconditions to establish the rational flooring for intelligibility. Van Til called this truth “the method of implication into the truth of God a transcendental method. That is, we must seek to determine what presuppositions are necessary to any object of knowledge in order that it may be intelligible to us.” Transcendental scrutiny of anti-theism demonstrates that it is self-destructive inasmuch as it fails to give what it does not possess. Man is devoid of eternal omniscience, aseity, sovereignty, and omnipotence.

Bahnsen set forth transcendental analysis as that “which asks what the preconditions are for the intelligibility of human experience. Under what conditions is it possible, or what would also need to be true in order for it to be possible, to make sense of one’s experience of the world? To seek the transcendental conditions for knowing is to ask what is presupposed by any intelligent experience whatsoever.” Humankind does not need to exist for the intelligibility of the universe. Mere men cannot supply the transcendental conditions that are needed for the laws of logic, love, and morality.

Van Til contended that “the general precedes the particular” in our reality. This implies that the anthropology of atheism cannot supply the general and universal realities that must be present, for the necessary and unavoidable transcendental conditions listed above.

Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen had heart valve implant surgery on December 5, 1995. After the completion of the operation, serious complications developed within twenty-four hours. He then became comatose for several days and died on December 11, 1995 at the age of forty-seven.

One Way to God: Christian Philosophy and Presuppositional Apologetics Examine World Religions

see my new Presuppositional eBook Reality and the Folly of Atheism HERE
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James Anderson: Paradox and Christian Theology a book Review

April 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Paradox and Christian Theology review by Mike Robinson

Logician Frege was felled by it (Mathematics erected upon pure logic). Russell’s Magnus Opus was made obsolete almost before it was printed (set theory). Modern Quantum Mechanics was struck by it (light simultaneously as wave and particle). Theologians have tried to rationally circumvent it (two natures one person). By what? Paradox! And in “Paradox In Christian Theology: An Analysis of Its Presence, Character, and Epistemic Status,” James Anderson elegantly discusses essential doctrines of Christianity that are paradoxical, but retain epistemic warrant (resembling Plantinga’s application of the term warrant).

“I confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it. Don’t you think that you have kept up your mystery long enough, Mr. Holmes?” “Certainly, colonel, you shall know everything” (Arthur Conan Doyle).

Anderson Paradox Christian Theology

Anderson Paradox Christian Theology

Anderson cogently establishes that the doctrine of the Trinity, Incarnation, and the crucifixion of God’s Son are not essentially contradictory, but apparently appear epistemically incongruent. Among the many exceptional chapters are:

•  The problem of paradox (in Christian theology)
•  The paradox of the Trinity (Nicea, Modalism, Post-Nicene Fathers, and more)
•  The paradox in the Incarnation (Chalcedon, Post-Chalcedonian)
•  Responding to Paradox
•  Warranted Christian Doctrines
•  A Model for the rational affirmation of paradoxical theology
•   The model defended – and other outstanding theological material.

The author observes, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand’” (Luke 8:10).

Anderson seems to draw upon Cornelius Van Til’s notion of Paradox (p. 4), nonetheless Van Til is noted only one lone occasion in the Index (3 X in the Bibliography) as John Frame (1 x in the Bibliography) and Greg Bahnsen are entirely absent in the Index. However there is an abundant use of Alston, Plantinga, and Aquinas (this is not a criticism, just pertinent information to assist the reader). Anderson makes the important point that many of those who advocate the possibility of paradox in Christian theology do not address “in any depth the prior question of what constitutes rationality: what is required for belief to be judged ‘rational’ and whether adherence to paradoxical doctrines can ever meet the relevant epistemic requirements” (p. 5). This historical deficiency is of utmost importance if one aspires to present an epistemic ground to affirm or reject the notion of paradox in theology. Professor Anderson takes great care to define his employment of the term paradox as “synonymous with apparent contradiction. A ‘paradox’ thus amounts to a set of claims which taken in conjunction appear to be logically inconsistent. Note that according to this definition, paradoxicality does not entail logical inconsistency” (p. 6). He adds “we are not positing an exception to the laws of logic, but merely acknowledging an element of imprecision in our systematic comprehension of data” (p. 276).

The author strives to answer two key questions relating paradox to theology:

1. “Are any essential Christian doctrines genuinely paradoxical?”
2. “Can a person rationally believe a paradoxical doctrine?” (p. 6).

Anderson answers in the affirmative on both questions with the caveat that this does not necessitate logical inconsistency. The good professor adds: “Only divine revelation has the epistemic authority to ‘trump’ our natural intuitions about what is metaphysically possible and what is not” (p. 266). This work has an exceedingly technical aspect suffused within, yet the author writes in a style that makes this work accessible to the budding apologist and many who lack training in epistemology or theology. It covers weighty concepts that most philosophers deliver solely to academicians, but herein Anderson’s exposition is precise and well delineated forasmuch as he defines numerous complex terms as the pages are unfurled (great for upper high school and college).

This is an excellent work on a crucial topic that most theologians avoid or sweep under their epistemic shag carpet (John Frame and Van Til endowed the church with fine work on the reality of Paradox in theology).

“By which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ” (Ephesians 3:4).

Paradox in Christian Theology is commanding, wide-ranging, accurate, and encumbered with powerful apologetic and theological argumentation; an indispensable addition to the library of all apologists, ministers, philosophers, informed students, and epistemologists.

—————-
Clarkian W. Gary Crampton wrote an unfavorable review of Anderson’s book, however his charges do not take into account that which Anderson has clearly written. There are a couple of problems with Crampton’s objection of Anderson’s use of the concept of Paradox. Anderson responds to Crampton’s spurious assault: “Since my book defines a paradox as “an apparent contradiction” it certainly follows that there is a subjective element to paradox. Appearances, in the nature of the case, are always appearances to someone (i.e., a conscious subject). Does it follow that the issue of whether there are theological paradoxes is “totally subjective”? Not at all. One might as well argue that the issue of whether the sky appears blue is “totally subjective”. Subjectivity does not entail subjectivism. Furthermore, I don’t claim that the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation have not been “reconciled before the bar of someone’s human reason.” What I do claim is that no Christian theologian or philosopher to date (Gordon Clark included) has offered precise and intelligible formulations of those doctrines that are both biblically orthodox and free from any apparent logical difficulties. I don’t rule out that some bright mind will one day come up with such formulations—and I’d be among the first to celebrate that accomplishment—but our track record thus far suggests that we ought to temper our expectations” (A Response to W. Gary Crampton’s Review, p. 11).

Anderson adjoins: “I believe it’s clear from Dr. Crampton’s review that his presuppositions are not well supported by the Bible. (If they were, it wouldn’t be so difficult for him to find biblical support for them without having to press-gang verses into doing philosophical work that goes far beyond their contextual meaning.) The fact is that the Bible doesn’t directly address the question of whether or not biblical doctrines could present to us as paradoxical. It seems the only way to answer that question is to consider the biblical doctrines themselves, to see whether they really are susceptible to formulations that avoid paradox without distorting what the Bible actually says (e.g., about God’s triunity or Christ’s divinity and humanity)” [Response p. 16].

In contrast to Crampton’s unfounded critical review, the always bright and erudite scholar Paul Helm wrote in his review of Anderson’s book(Helm’s Deep: Paradox and Mystery): “Anderson has written is a book of great importance to those concerned both with the relation of Christian theology to reason, and with the question of the reasonableness of Christian belief. In the first half of the book he raises questions about doctrinal coherence, and in the second half he raises how deep our understanding of the mysteries of the faith can hope to be, and whether it is reasonable to believe what we cannot understand. Anderson has admirable contributions to each of these areas. His treatments of the questions are thorough and clear, with a good theological grasp and a philosophical mind” (Helm’s Deep, Paradox and Mystery, p. 1).

“Anderson is chiefly concerned with what are usually called the mysteries of our faith, with what he calls paradoxes. He understands paradoxes to be sets of statements that are apparently contradictory. (The way that the author ties ‘mystery’ to the test of logic, and does not treat it as a hold-all for any theological difficulty, is excellent)” [Paradox and Mystery, p. 2).

“There is much to learn and to ponder from Anderson’s book” (P & M, p. 3).

see the Innovative book that utilizes  new Apologetic Research: Truth, Knowledge and the Reason for God HERE
Check out my new Presuppositional book Reality and the Folly of Atheism HERE
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