The Battle of Presuppositions

OBJECTION: "Logic, uniformity of nature, causation, a mind-independent reality, reliability of sense perception, etc are merely presuppositions of my worldview. They are properly basic and do not need to be justified. We both presuppose them so why do you need to add an extra entity (i.e. God)?"

This kind of objection is encountered rather frequently and is used by unbelievers who have been faced with the insurmountable difficulty of answering the presuppositionalist's questions about these things. But there are three problems I'd like to point out with such a response. 

First, it is incredibly naive to think that one can just posit these things without a broader worldview in which they can be made intelligible. Sure, they may be presuppositions in a sense and as such more basic than other beliefs. But without a metaphysical background to give them meaning they are, to use Van Til's terms, just rocks in a bottomless ocean. There needs to be a hard place where they can firmly rest. This "hard place" is meant to be provided by the metaphysical and epistemological commitments of a certain worldview.

For example, something like logic doesn't fit into just any metaphysical picture of the world. A purely monistic metaphysics, for instance, is completely at odds with logic which presupposes distinctions. What the apologist needs to do is press the unbeliever about his hard place.

How can he bring the purely formal, abstract, unchanging principles of logic into meaningful contact with the ever-changing, contingent realm of concrete particulars? 

How can he hold to the principle of the uniformity of nature and causation given a metaphysics of chance and pure contingency? 

How can he hold to a mind-independent reality given the egocentric predicament? 

How can he hold to the reliability of sense perception given belief in biological evolution and a fundamental disconnection of the subject from the objects of knowledge?

These questions can only be answered from a broader metaphysical framework provided by a worldview. So the question isn't about whether you have the rocks. The question is "do you have a hard place to keep them?"

The second problem I'd like to point out with this objection is one of arbitrariness. The unbeliever asserts the presuppositional status of these beliefs in order to claim that they need not be justified. Such a move introduces a problem of arbitrariness into his epistemology. Certainly, such a move is disallowed elsewhere in his epistemology so why should it be allowed at the start? Why should he be allowed to have unjustified beliefs about things like logic and uniformity while simultaneously holding other beliefs (e.g belief in God) to different standards?

Well, it is claimed that these special in some sense. But this is obviously special pleading. Different criteria are usually put forward in order to show that it is okay for these beliefs to be unjustified/unjustifiable. But what justifies the criteria itself? The unbeliever has still not gotten rid of the problem of arbitrariness. Why should that criteria be used or assumed to be the correct one?

Basically, the unbeliever is trying to ask for faith commitments in order for his epistemology to get off the ground and then wants to go ahead and say "no more faith commitments". His epistemology is reduced to arbitrariness.

Anyways, that’s what I wanted to share with you today. 

Cheers!

P.S.: if you’d like to learn how to demonstrate philosophical futility of his metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions, then consider grabbing a copy of my latest book The Best Argument for Christianity where I go into why Christianity Theism - and Christian Theism alone - is transcendentally necessary. Get it here 

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