Dr. Sproul, after Dr. Meyer's talk, back here in the room, you mentioned, boy, that's great
apologetics. And there's a question here asking an apologetical method question. Can you explain
the difference between presuppositional and classical apologetics? And maybe elaborate
on what you meant by even Dr. Meyer's talk and how you thought that that was a well-presented
apologetical argument within a framework of the different schools of thought of approaching
apologetics.
SPROUL JR.: There are different schools of thought with respect to apologetics. I can
think of at least three right off the bat. There's presuppositionalism, and there are
different schools of that. There's axiomatic presuppositionalism that follows Gordon Clark,
and then there's the other presuppositional school that follows Cornelius Van Til. And
then there's the second approach to apologetics, which is called evidentialism. And then the
third view that I espouse, which is called classical view of apologetics. There are lots
of differences, Chris, and it would be unfair to try to define them absolutely in the short
term, but the fundamental differences in presuppositional apologetics argues this
way that the only way you can come to a sound conclusion of the existence of God is that
you must begin with the assertion of God's existence. You must presuppose the existence
of God in order to have a sound argument for the existence of God. Evidentialism sees that
as circular, which of course they don't have that critique of presuppositions being circular
in its reasoning process. It's not something that one must prove or display, because for
example Van Til's defense of presuppositional apologetics, he not only admits, in fact he
wouldn't like the word admit, but he agrees that it is circular, but he says in defense
of that that the nature of all arguments is circular, that the starting points and
the conclusions are all bound up one with another. And what he means by that, I see
two problems with that. One is if you admit that your method of proving the existence
of God is circular and commits the Petit Principia fallacy in logic, then you've already surrendered
the rationality of your position, and you've given the unbeliever an excuse to reject your
position because you have made a logical violation in the process. Well, Van Til acknowledges
circular reasoning, but he defends it by saying, as I mentioned, that it's a particular type
of circular reasoning, and in this case he commits a second informal fallacy, the one
of equivocation, because the meaning of the term circular changes in the argument. He
could have just as easily said that all arguments are by nature linear, that if I start with
a rational starting point and come to a rational conclusion, that's not circularity. That's
linearity. It's the same thing if I begin with an empirical premise and come to an empirical
conclusion. I've just remained consistent in my methodology, and there's no sin in that.
The problem against that, evidentialism says that we present concrete empirical evidence
for the existence of God, arguing from nature and so on, and also from history and the like,
and that that will give you a probability quotient of conclusion that would satisfy
even somebody like David Hume in terms of the astronomical probability quotient that
you achieve, but that even those arguments based on empirical investigation and so on
and inferences drawn from them will not get you to formal certainty, that that can only
be arrived at through a logical proof that is irrefutable. But classical apologetics
say that the case for the existence of God can be proven demonstrably, rationally, and
formally, and compellingly. So it's a little stronger than evidentialists who are more
empirically oriented. But what I said afterwards was that that's the way apologetics ought
to be done. You don't just say to the scientific community, well, you're working on the wrong
presuppositions or you have the wrong worldview. That's true, but you have to begin to show
them that the conclusions that they've drawn from their own evidence are formally invalid,
which is what I heard this morning, and I thought it was magnificent.
One follow-up question is, how do we explain why classical apologetics is not equated with
rationalism?
That's to me again? How do I answer the charge? Well, you know, if I espouse to be human,
that doesn't mean I've embraced humanism. If I argue that I exist, that doesn't mean
that I am an advocate of existentialism, and just because a woman is feminine does not
make her a feminist. We want to be rational. To be rational is to think in a sound way,
and to be rational does not mean you embrace rationalism, and at the same time you have
to understand that historically in the field of philosophical inquiry there have been three
distinct types of rationalism. Cartesian rationalism, where rationalism is distinguished
from empiricism, where the highest proof is found in the a priori categories of the mind
rather than a posteriori demonstrations empirically. In that debate between the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the second form of rationalism is the form you found in the Enlightenment
where the rationalism was distinguished not from empiricism, but from revelation, where
reason was elevated above the trustworthiness of supernatural revelation. Then the third
kind of rationalism is the Hegelian rationalism of the nineteenth century, where reason is
elevated to the capital R, where it is the highest reality, where reason itself becomes
God. So when you call me a rationalist, I want to know what kind of rationalist you're
calling me, and I would deny all three of those and would say I'm just trying to be
rational. I hope that answers it. The alternative to that is everything outside of the category
of the rational is what? Irrational. We don't want that.
Before we get to the classical view, let me mention another approach to apologetics, which
has become the overwhelming majority report within Reformed theology, and that is the
view of apologetics known as presuppositional apologetics. There's more than one variety
of it. There's axiomatic presuppositionalism that was championed by Gordon Clark, but the
more popular view of presuppositionalism is that that was developed by Cornelius Van Til
late of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, where he labored for several
decades and who has published much in this field, and who was indeed a genuine giant
and titan of the Christian faith. The book that I co-authored with John Gerstner and
Lindsay, entitled Classical Apologetics, includes in one-third of that book a comprehensive
critique of presuppositionalism. So because of that book that Art Lindsley and John Gerstner
and I authored, we have become engaged in ongoing dialogue within the Reformed camp
with respect to what is the preferred approach to doing apologetics. And Dr. Mantill, having
written in the English language, which was not his native tongue, he was a native of
Holland, sometimes writes in a style that is somewhat difficult to follow. And because
of that, not only do his critics differ among themselves as to what he was actually saying,
but also some of his most noteworthy students differ in how they interpret him. Some of
his students interpret Mantill as a fitteist, whereas I think his most able interpreter,
the late Gregory Bonson, did not see Mantill as a fitteist, but saw him arguing a rational
case for the existence of God.
And I'm not going to get into a lot of discussion right now about presuppositionalism, only
to say by way of introduction that the presuppositional approach says this, that in order to arrive
at the conclusion that God exists, in order to prove the existence of God, you must start
with your primary premise, your first premise, being the presupposition of the existence
of God. In other words, that unless you start by presupposing the existence of God, you
will never get to the conclusion of the existence of God.
Now, of course, the immediate objection that is raised against that form of thinking is
that that procedure of starting with the thesis that God exists and then reasoning to the
conclusion that God exists involves a classic fallacy of logic called the Petitio Principii
fallacy or the fallacy of circular reasoning. And the fallacy of circular reasoning occurs
when the conclusion appears already in one of your premises. See, that the conclusion
is already assumed up here. And so, this is a faulty form of reasoning which invalidates
an argument, and that's been the chief objection raised against presuppositional apologetics.
However, the defense that Dr. Van Til gave to that, because he was certainly aware that
that charge would be made against this approach, he defended it by saying that all reasoning
moves in a circular fashion. Insofar as its starting point, its middle ground, and its
conclusions are all involved with each other, which is to say, if you start with a rational
premise and you reason consistently in a rational way, your conclusion will be of a rational
sort.
And so, with that kind of definition, Dr. Van Til justifies his use of circular reasoning
saying that it's no different from anybody else because all reasoning is circular in
that sense. Well, those of us who don't adopt this approach to apologetics find in the justification
for circular reasoning the commission of a second fallacy that is as deadly as the
first one. The first fallacy is the fallacy of circular reasoning, which in classic categories
of logic invalidates an argument. The justification for using circular reasoning involves the
second fallacy, which is the fallacy of equivocation, where a term changes its meaning in the middle
of the argument. When he justifies circular reasoning by saying that all reasoning is
circular in the sense that its starting point and its conclusion are of the similar sort,
that's not what is meant by circular reasoning. We've all understood that a rational argument,
if it's going to be rational, must be consistently rational throughout. And why call that a circle
when in fact it's linear? You begin with a rational premise, you use another rational
premise, and you move and advance to a conclusion that is of a rational sort without running
around in a circle. Now, granted, there is a presupposition in rational argument, the
presupposition of reason, the presupposition of the law of non-contradiction, the presupposition
of causality, and the other presuppositions that I've been setting before you in this
class, including the basic reliability of sense perception and the analogical use of
language. Now, those who defend Dr. Van Til here, like Greg Bonson, are saying really
what Van Til is getting at here is something a little deeper than a superficial exercise
in circular reasoning. What he's saying is that if you want to assume rationality, to
even assume rationality involves you out of necessity of presupposing the existence of
God, because without God there is no foundation for rationality. There's no foundation for
trusting the law of causality. There's no foundation for trusting the basic reliability
of sense perception. And so, even though you don't admit it, when you advocate reason,
you are already assuming the ground of that reason, which is God Himself. So, let's just
be open and above board and say anybody who presupposes rationality is therefore presupposing
the existence of God, and they're simply disguising that. And so, I feel the weight of that because
we certainly agree as classicists that it is true that if rationality is to be meaningful,
and if these presuppositions of epistemology that I'm talking about are sound, then they
scream for the existence of God. But that's exactly what classical apologetics is trying
to prove, that if you want to be rational, you've got to affirm the existence of God,
because the very reason that you're presupposing demands the existence of God. But we have
to show people that, and we don't think it's a good strategy just to muddle the argument
by saying, well, you have to start with the existence of God in your premise, in your
argument in order to approve it, because then the other guy says, well, I'm going to start
without the premise of God, and I'm going to end up in meaninglessness. Okay? And now
what you have is a tie. And as they say, that's like kissing your sister, and we're not interested
in that kind of experience.
So, the biggest objection that I have, frankly, besides these logical errors to presuppositionalism
is that nobody starts with God except God. You can't start in your mind with God, the
knowledge of God, unless you're God. Where we say you start is with self-consciousness,
and from self-consciousness you move to the existence of God. You don't start with God
consciousness and move to the existence of the self. By necessity, human beings thinking
with human minds must start with where they are, with their brain. Now, the objection
that comes to that is that we are capitulating to secular, pagan ideas of thought. I remember
debating this point with one of the advocates of presuppositionalism in a public meeting
almost thirty years ago, where this particular professor was very exercised when I said that
you have to start with self-consciousness, and he said that that's unbiblical because
that what I'm doing is assuming the autonomy of the self rather than the sovereignty of
God, and that this is exactly what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden when they rebelled
against God, and that it is a sinful, fallen, corrupt way to start reasoning by beginning
with the self rather than with God. And I said to him, I would certainly agree that
if my first supposition, my primary premise in reasoning was the autonomy of myself, that
I would be guilty of everything you say, that I would be indeed already embracing paganism,
and I could only end up if I were indeed consistent with the deification of the self and the rejection
of God. But I said we don't start with the autonomy of the self, but simply the consciousness
of the self, and I reminded my friend that Augustine himself said that with self-consciousness
always comes immediately an awareness of finitude, that the moment that you're aware of yourself
as a self, you know you're not God. That's what Calvin argued at the same time, and I'm
saying that the idea of autonomy, where you're a law unto yourself, is not contained in the
idea of self-consciousness. If it were, it would indeed be sinful to start at that point.
What we're saying is that the beginning with self-consciousness is a given to creatureliness.
It's the only place any self can start with their thinking. You cannot start in your mind
with his thought, or with my thought, or with God's thought. The only thing you start with
is your own self-awareness, and from there you move because you are a self, and you will
soon discover that you are not autonomous at all. And that's what we're saying, that
if you begin with self-consciousness, and you reason correctly, so far from ending in
autonomy, you will in fact end by necessarily affirming the existence of God.
The fear among presuppositionalists is that in arguing rationally and empirically that
we give too much away to the pagan world, and of course the fear of the classicists
for the presuppositionists is they give too much away. They give the pagan an excuse for
not believing in the existence of God, because the pagan can see that their approach violates
principles of rationality. But one thing we all agree on is that the construction of the
existence of God is certainly the most important single premise in the building of a person's
life and worldview, and that we know that what the pagan does, according to Romans 1,
is that the first lie that he embraces is the denial of the eternal power and deity
of God. And then his mind becomes darkened, and the more brilliant he is, the further
away he moves from that first awareness of God that he gets in nature. And so we all
agree in the supreme importance of establishing early on in our apologetic the existence
of God. That's the first thing that has to be established. We agree that God is first
in the order of being, obviously, but the disagreement is what comes first in the process
of knowing. We say God is first in the order of being, but not first in the order of knowing.