Transcript

Well, Richard Howe, Dr. Richard Howe, it's great to have you on Capturing Christianity.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Take about 30 seconds.

We're talking about presuppositionalism today.

Okay.

Let me try that again.

We're talking about presuppositionalism today.

And so we're talking about actually reasons to think that is false, reasons to think it's the wrong view, the wrong method of apologetics.

Yes.

So, but take about 30 seconds, 30, 60 seconds and just inform our audience a little about who you are, why you're interested in these subjects.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I was raised in the church.

I got saved as a teenager, 16 years old, went off to university, lost my faith.

It was apologetics that brought me back to the Lord.

When was this?

This would have been in the 70s.

It was in the 70s and then into the 80s, basically in the 70s in Mississippi where I grew up.

What did apologetics look like in the 70s?

So at the time it was ministries like Josh McDowell, you know, R .C. Sproul, Norman Geisler.

When I talk to audiences, I say they ministered to me through their cassette tapes.

And then I usually go, cassette tapes are these little plastic things that are shaped like this, you know, because I figured a lot of people wouldn't even know what a cassette tape was.

And so it was people like that, that God had brought into my life through those kinds, their ministries that they had in apologetics.

Yeah.

They reaffirmed basic truths of the Christian faith that I had affirmed before but didn't know before why I believed what I believed because my church hadn't really helped me understand those things.

Yeah.

They didn't help equip you in the right ways.

Absolutely not.

And I was blindsided by these challenges when I got to university.

Right.

And I think a lot of our viewers are probably going to appreciate the same thing, that that's like something that happens all the time even nowadays, right?

Absolutely.

So I have, real quick, in the 1970s, actually, William Lane Craig's book on the Kalam Cosmological Argument came out, I think it was 1974.

I think I have it now.

I don't know if I have the right date there.

If I don't, it was in the 70s.

You may be right about that.

It didn't come on my radar screen until I was actually a graduate student in philosophy in the middle 80s.

Okay.

In fact, it just blew me away.

I mean, I thought it was one of the most amazing things I had ever heard.

And I actually ended up doing my master's thesis on that argument.

I was taking his version of the argument, trying to defend it against additional objections that I had encountered in the philosophy journals and even giving the argument that were subsequent to the publication of his book.

How could I extend the argument and continue to defend it?

Interesting.

Well, let's get to the subject today.

We're talking about presuppositionalism.

So lay out what that view is and maybe some of the competing views.

And then from there, we'll look at arguments.

So within evangelicalism, I think the two basic or major camps of how we do apologetics are divided into what I sometimes call the classical approach, or some people might call it an evidential approach on the one hand, and then the presuppositionalism on the other.

And there's a range within each one.

Okay.

Where would reformed epistemology fall in there?

Well, actually, reformed epistemology would be a third category that is, I only left it out because it's not as prominent among evangelicals as it might be within a more broad spectrum of Christianity.

Okay.

And it's generally held by people with a little bit more of a philosophical orientation.

So it would be the approach of, say, Alvin Plantinga, taking his philosophy of proper basicality and warrant in these things and applying that to the task of apologetics.

Okay.

So it's kind of a different animal than either presuppositionalism or the classical approach.

So tell me more about those two approaches and the two main approaches.

So in effect, Cornelius Van Til, who's the fountainhead of American presuppositional thought, who was a professor at Westminster Seminary in the early 20th century, in effect says that any argument for the existence of God that concludes God cannot be the God of Christianity because the God of Christianity, in his estimation, has to be the presuppositionalist.

So in effect, Van Til would say, the assumption or the presupposition of God is the necessary condition for all knowledge.

Whereas the classical approach is going to say, there are truths about reality that normal human beings with the faculties God has created us with, there are truths that we cannot fail to know as human beings, and from those truths, a person can construct, we believe, a demonstrable argument for the existence of God.

So it's just basically a debate, if you will, over the propriety of giving arguments and evidence primarily for God's existence.

Are you familiar with Seidenbruggen, Kate?

Only in as much as I've seen some of his stuff on the internet.

I don't know that I've had a steady diet of his way in which he does it.

It's an interesting way to put it.

Well, that's just to say that I don't know, in my opinion, whether I would categorize him as...

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, he's spot on with the Van Til -Bonson approach, or if he's got his own sort of take on it.

That's actually the distinction I was trying to make there, is his version of presuppositionalism is a lot different than I think what you described.

Okay.

Well, that may very well be, so I'll defer to your knowledge about that.

He's just somebody - I don't have a whole lot of knowledge about him either, so.

So I've heard his name, I've seen him a few times in just partial exchanges, but never really watched an entire debate.

So you've inspired me maybe to go back, because I would be curious as to how faithful you are.

How faithful he is.

I take the presuppositional method to be best exemplified by Greg Bonson as a disciple of Van Til.

He did a lot of debates and everything.

Oh, absolutely.

He's debating - And everyone says that he's just completely destroyed these guys, the people he's debating.

And that's actually one of the things that people say that why presuppositionalism is the best method is because it's so effective.

Well, what's interesting about that observation, I would allege, is that whenever the presuppositionalist actually starts to construct an argument, I've never seen them fail to do exactly what the classical method does.

So explain that.

So what they do basically, this is what I think is a perennial mistake in all that I've read of all the presuppositionalists that I've read, including Bonson's material, is that when they define presuppositionalism, they say it this way, the assumption of God is the precondition of knowledge.

But when they try to explain what that means, what they end up defending is God.

God is the precondition of knowledge.

Well, of course, God is the precondition of knowledge because he's the creator, right?

But God is not the same as the assumption of God.

Now, what's interesting is this particular nuanced point came out in Bonson's debate with R .C. Sproul in the late 70s.

And when Sproul was trying to rehearse back to Bonson how he understood Bonson's position, it's just an audio, so you're having to visualize.

You could almost see Bonson shaking his head because Sproul kind of trails off.

Oh, that's not what you mean?

And here's what the issue was.

Bonson said, no, we're not merely making an ontological point.

We're not merely saying God is the precondition of knowledge.

Bonson goes on, because that doesn't distinguish the two models, both the classical, and I think he's right, both the classical approach and the presuppositional approach would agree that God is the precondition of knowledge because he's the creator.

What makes the presuppositionalist distinct from the classical is the epistemological question of the assumption.

The assumption of God is the precondition of knowledge, and every place I've ever read any presuppositionalist trying to explain that, he always ends up explaining how God is the precondition.

In fact, it's interesting, just before our conversation, I was just having a conversation with a gentleman in the lobby where we are, and he is a presuppositionalist, and I pulled out a Van Til quote on one of my slides of one of my PowerPoints, and within one paragraph, he switches from the presuppositionalist.

Presupposition of the truth of Christianity is the precondition of knowledge to the truth of Christianity is the precondition of knowledge.

Well, the latter I wouldn't disagree with.

That's exactly what the classical model would affirm.

God obviously is the precondition.

Right.

I like that distinction between the ontological kind of thing and then the epistemological.

Yes.

So what is it that motivates the presuppositionalist to adopt that view instead of the classical view?

So this is one of the things I appreciate about the integrity of the presuppositionalist.

I think they're right in this regard as far as it goes, that they're insistent that one's apologetic method should track sound theology.

Now people can debate what they think sound theology is, but pending a decision on that, the principle I think is intact.

Namely, since they are, at least Van Til and Bonson, are thoroughgoing Calvinists with a certain view about the noetic effects of sin and the fall, the total depravity, then they think that this apologetic method is the right thing to do.

It is the only method that's possible given the fallen state that man is in.

Is it just the fallen state, or do they also look at other scriptures to defend it?

Romans 1, for instance.

Well, they certainly look at other scriptures in order to bolster the case that this is just in fact the way the Bible does apologetics.

But even in those instances, it's always because of this fallen state and the noetic effects of sin that man is in, in this rebellion.

As Romans 1 talks about, we suppress the truth.

We suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

But what's interesting about that passage in Romans, it says the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen through the things that are made, so that they are without excuse.

But those things that are clearly seen then are suppressed the truth and unrighteousness as it indicts the human race, and then exchanges the Creator for the creation.

So I see the classical model going, well, this whole problem of us suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.

That's really a moral problem.

That's not an apologetics issue.

The apologists can't undo someone's suppression of the truth and rebellion against God.

That's between them and God through the act of the Holy Spirit.

But this exchanging the Creator for the creation, I think, is where the apologetics comes in.

It says, look, we can leverage an argument to show that His exchanging the Creator for the creation is just false.

There is the God that we know there to be, and we can demonstrate it by sound reason.

What they do with that, if they're going to continue to suppress the truth and unrighteousness, and suppress that, that's between them and God.

That's not anything that the apologists can touch.

So I think the failure to sort of follow it through, they're clearly seeing attributes, then the truth is suppressed, and then the Creator creation is exchanged.

The presuppositionalist sort of forgets that third step, and they think it's just merely a matter, it's clearly seen, and it's suppressed.

Well then, if that's all the problem is, the only way to unsuppress it is not apologetics, it's evangelism.

So indeed, a lot of presuppositionalists would almost say, in fact, I've heard them say things, to the effect, really, the task force is to preach the gospel, not to try to defend the gospel.

And I go, well, but to defend the gospel is going to address that third level there, where the Creator is exchanged for the creation.

So I think it's good that presuppositionalists have such a high view of Christianity and Scripture, and that's one of the things they say that is bad with the classical approach, is that you're not sort of assuming that Christianity is true, and that's like the greatest good, that's the greatest thing to believe.

And so how, but in a classical view.

So for instance.

When I'm giving a presentation on the Kalam Cosmological Argument, that doesn't necessarily lead all the way to Christianity is true, and that's one of the things that presuppositionalists don't like.

That's right.

Is the fact that you're not going all the way to Christianity every single time, all the time.

No, and I agree with the presuppositionalists in that regard.

Exactly.

Yes.

So I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

No, that was it.

But I think that they're right, and though I like the Kalam Argument, I think it is true that it only gives you some minimal facts.

Which may be in a lot of situations.

In a lot of situations, that's enough.

People conclude, well, you've got somebody that made the universe sounds like God, and they're off and running.

Okay, fine.

But a person who's going to push back, you go, well, the Kalam doesn't prove that whoever created the universe still exists.

Maybe he created the universe and went out of existence.

Doesn't prove that he's good.

Doesn't prove that he's personal necessarily, unless you add the additional elements that's additional to the argument.

So I agree with all that.

That's why, as a Thomist, I would say, yeah, but Aquinas' argument, interestingly, not only gives you...

Wait, which argument?

Which Thomist argument?

Well, all of them, actually, but they're parsed out as the five ways, but the one that I typically give more often is the way that is the argument he gives in his On Being and Essence, which traffics in the distinction between essence and existence, whatever that means.

Okay.

Isn't that the fourth way?

Is that the fourth way or the fifth?

No, it's not.

No. Oh, it's not any of the ways.

Well, it is infused through all five ways, but it's explicitly given in On Being and Essence in a version or in a wording that is not as easy to see in the first.

So it's usually easier for me to just kind of cut to the, here's the kernel of all of those arguments, and it traffics in this essence, existence, distinction, whatever that ends up being.

And so is your point that from here we can go all the way to Christianity?

More than that.

Okay.

More than that?

Yes.

More than that in the sense that not that we can go all the way to Christianity, but that the demonstration of God in Aquinas' argument inexorably entails all the superlative attributes of God.

Mm -hmm.

Now, it may not be all the way to Christianity.

It may not be all the way to Christianity in the sense that it gives us special revelation.

So I'll grant that it doesn't give us that, but it gives us the God of classical theism, which is there's only one God, so the God of classical theism would have to be the God of the Bible.

When it comes to if the presuppositionalists or a critic of the classical method says, well, it doesn't give us all the way to Christianity.

If by that it means it doesn't give us the Bible yet, I would concede that.

And then I would say that's because I can give additional arguments for why we know.

I know that the Bible is God's revelation of himself, his special revelation, which is different than the arguments of natural theology and his existence.

But what I deny is that the God that's delivered by this classical method of Aquinas, I deny the fact that the God that he gives us is some kind of minimal theism, as it's often described in some of the presuppositional literature.

No, it's not a minimalism.

So you would say it's classical theism that it gives us.

It's absolutely.

It's simplicity.

It's immutability.

It's immateriality.

Omnipotence.

Omnipotence.

All of the classical attributes of God cascade inexorably from this simple demonstration of God's existence.

And then the sort of fountainhead of the attributes would be simplicity.

And then once simplicity is explained, then all the other attributes follow inevitably and unavoidably.

And since there is only one God, then that has to be the God of the Bible.

I'm tempted to go off track here and just talk about this argument that you just gave for another hour or so.

But let's, so how can classical apologists do better about bringing it back to what's most important, right, is the gospel message.

And this is something, I'll just get your thoughts on this real quick.

So one of the things I've been studying is the relationship between homiletics and apologetics.

And the fact that in homiletics, good preachers always, always, always tie their messages back to Jesus.

Okay.

And I think in apologetics, the classical approach can still incorporate this somehow.

And I think Dr. Craig does this beautifully in some of his debates.

Absolutely.

Where he'll give, at the end of his debate, he'll give a sort of testimony.

Yes.

And say, if you want to know this person, then I invite you to read more about this and read the New Testament and see if your life has changed like mine was changed.

Right.

And so what I think what we need to do is find creative ways, the classical approach can find creative ways to always bring it back to the gospel.

And it's not impossible.

Absolutely.

Just like a good preacher will bring a passage in Daniel all the way back to Jesus.

Yes.

And I think I would celebrate that.

But I think sometimes we'll find ourselves, the opportunity to do that may be strewn out over a longer period of time than we wish.

That is to say, it might not be the case that when I have lunch with an atheist friend and we have our argument that before lunch is over, I've gotten all the way to the gospel.

It may be that it's going to take a little bit more plowing the field, massaging the conversation or whatever before I ever get to the point where giving the gospel would even make sense.

That's a judgment call.

I mean, there's nothing ever right.

There's nothing ever wrong with just giving the gospel no matter what.

You can hand them a four spiritual laws track for that matter.

But I'm talking about in terms of the cascade and connections of linear thought that once and until a person understands who God is, as far as being the creator, the God of classical theism with his attributes, it's only then that they're even in a position to consider the truths of the Christian faith specifically in terms of Jesus being God in flesh.

So I think one of the difficulties that presuppositionalism faces in particular, I think, is that we're not really making any headway.

I think what we're doing is how to engage someone of another faith, like a Muslim apologist or something like that, because you can't have necessarily the assumption of Christianity there if you're talking with a Muslim, right?

So how does that work?

No, what's funny— It doesn't really have any problem with the classical approach, right?

Well, it's funny.

No, it doesn't. And it's funny, I was actually in a conversation with a presuppositionalist and right in midstream because I thought, well, I'm not really making any headway.

I'm not really very persuasive here.

So I just switched, and I began to argue as a presuppositionalist Muslim.

Wow.

And everything this Christian said to me, I said, the problem is you're not presupposing the self -authenticating, infallible word of the Koran.

That's your problem.

You're not submitting yourself to the authoritative precondition of all, however you want to say it, and used all the language that I could think of, of the presuppositionalist, except saying Christian or saying Bible, I said Muslim, and I said Koran.

And in order to try to get him to see that as far as the template of what you're doing, it can't adjudicate different religions, each of which might make the same presuppositional authoritarian claims.

There was no way to adjudicate between them.

This is a critique that some people even raise against Reformed epistemology.

What are your thoughts on that?

Do you think it equally works against Reformed epistemology?

My initial problem with the Reformed epistemology is trying to ultimately frame the issues in terms of, aren't our justifications?

So this is a sort of a piccadillo of mine with analytic philosophy, that it tries to settle epistemological issues without ultimately grounding epistemological concerns in metaphysics.

So I think it's one of the sort of drawbacks of a lot of the way in which analytic philosophy has come about in the 20th and now in the 21st century, that a lot of fields in philosophy are all now sort of detached.

So we're doing philosophy of mine.

We're doing epistemology.

We're doing all these different things as if one could do those in a way that's indifferent to any metaphysical commitments.

I would argue you can't do that.

To me, it doesn't seem like Reformed epistemology is doing that right, because Alvin Plantinga said, well, he has two conditional statements.

If Christianity is true, then Christian belief is probably warranted.

So that does seem to tie in a metaphysical thesis with an epistemological thesis.

But it's interesting, at the very end of the third volume on his set on warrant, he finally brings up, well, now having said all this, now the question is, is Christianity true?

And we'll just have to leave that for another.

And I thought, well, I don't think anyone could successfully carry through a discussion about warrant, to use his term, or knowledge without at the same time committing themselves to certain things in metaphysics that are the very ingredients of the demonstration of God's existence.

So in other words, they seem to me, they seem to kind of stand or fall together.

And you can't, in my judgment, deal with the epistemological issues in a way that, well, we're not going to make any judgments about these metaphysical things.

I go, I think you can't do that.

Yeah, so I think that what Plantinga was doing in that book was a little bit different.

He wasn't trying to prove that we are warranted.

He was saying there is no good de jure objection to Christian belief.

I think that's the kind of take that he went.

And I think that that was successful to show that, yeah, there is no de jure objection apart from a de facto objection.

Yeah.

And I celebrate that as well.

As far as it goes.

But I guess maybe again, it's just my sort of allergic reaction to analytic philosophy that I regret that so much labor is spent in epistemological concerns, in issues of justification, when I would challenge what they even are working with as a definition of knowledge in the first place.

So in other words, before we could have a robust discussion of how knowledge is warranted or knowledge is justified, there has to be a discussion, not that Plantinga is not, I'm not able to do this, but there has to be a discussion of and pulling the trigger on what knowledge is to begin with.

Well, right there, then I'm going to be very different than, say, a typical analytic, because I'd say, well, knowledge isn't even in the epistemological category anyway in the first place.

Knowledge in Aristotle and Aquinas is a metaphysical.

It's the actual formal unity of intellect with reality, where the knower actually becomes the thing known at a formal metaphysical level.

Whatever in the world that means.

Well, that's only coherent given this Aristotelian metaphysics with the augmentation that Aquinas goes on to make.

Plantinga, he's not interested in that particularly.

I suppose he probably doesn't even believe it, but it doesn't really matter in a sense.

It's like, well, we're going to have this discussion about warrant and justification, because the tripartite view of knowledge is what sort of motivates the task with the, what he thinks is sort of banking.

bankruptcy of foundationalism and the self -referential, you know, of some of the logical positivism and these kind of things.

Well, the whole thing's teed up because of these epistemological concerns that I'm going, well, these epistemological concerns shouldn't have been there in the first place if you'd done the metaphysics right.

That's a whole lot to just assert without having to defend it all here in our short time together.

But at least a person can understand where I'm coming from with these things.

Well, thank you, Dr. Howe.

It was awesome.

I know this was a short time together, but it was a great time.

And hopefully we can do something again in the future.

I'd love that.

Absolutely.

Thanks a lot.

All right.