Why Being a Presupp is Boring...

 


Being a Van Tilian can be boring. Why do I say this? Well, when one has come to a certain level of understanding of this method of apologetics, it’s not long till one realizes that there is little, if any, substantial and informed pushback from the unbelieving side.

Contemporary philosophy of religion and apologetics features heated discussions and debates between atheists/agnostics and Christian philosophers or apologists. The quality of the discourse is quite high with thinkers such as Graham Oppy, Alex Malpass, Joe Schmid, William Lange Craig, Josh Rasmussen, Edward Feser, Rob Koons, and many more giving various arguments in favor their positions and addressing objections. There is no shortage of philosophical action for the traditional apologist even if he is not in the upper echelon of contributors to the philosophy of religion. An intermediate apologist who defends the Kalam Cosmological Argument has to address a multitude of philosophical objections to that argument and these objections are being refined continually by very sharp thinkers.

The Van Tilian, on the other hand, can only watch from the sidelines as these thinkers use what he believes to be a flawed approach to defending Christianity. All substantial objections to his position have been decisively answered for decades. The discourse surrounding Van Tilian Presuppositionalism has not seen any significant progression since the time of Bahnsen. When the present-day traditional apologist reads Oppy’s Arguing About Gods, or J.L. Mackie’s The Miracle of Theism, or Sobel’s Logic and Theism (which are considered by many to be the best responses to arguments for God from atheists), he is forced to think seriously about his position and the adequacy of his arguments. The Van Tilian has no such works to keep him busy. He does not feel an inch of worry at the amount of rigor these astute thinkers utilize in their responses to arguments for theism. The Van Tilian is not interested in defending general theism. He wants to defend Christianity. His argument of choice—the transcendental argument—is not given any consideration.

This predicament is partly the fault of Van Tilians themselves. There is a worrying absence of Van Tilian contribution to contemporary philosophy of religion. Most Van Tilian scholars do not engage much in philosophy or in apologetic debates. This leads to general ignorance of the Van Tilian method and arguments. The most exposure Presuppositional apologetics has gotten is from popularizers who unfortunately water down all the philosophical nuance of the position. This has led most critics of Presuppositionalism to believe that these popularizers are the best the method has to offer and it need not be taken seriously. But the Van Tilian who has done his due diligence in studying the method’s philosophical and theological nuances knows this is not the case. He sees the state of the God debate. He knows that apologists are going about things the wrong way and conceding too much ground to atheistic philosophy. He knows that there are far stronger ways to defend the Christian faith.

But alas his voice is not heard. At worst, he is laughed at and ridiculed due to the reputation his method has gotten. He is left addressing the same tired objections and misunderstandings from unbelievers and Christian opponents of Presuppositionalism. This is not to say that doing apologetics at the popular level is not important. However, we are called to pull down all arguments that raise themselves above the knowledge of Christ. If the discourse surrounding Presuppositionalism is to move forward, it must start with the Van Tilian himself. 

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