Presuppositionalists and the Problem of Faith
Some weeks ago I watched a debate between the New Atheist Christopher Hitchens and the presuppositionalist Douglas Wilson, and the latter said something very interesting that called my attention. Wilson argued that we all – even non-theists and non-spiritualists – hold some beliefs on the basis of faith (i.e., we assume or take certain things for granted). If that's true, does that mean theists (e.g., Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Wiccans, Zoroastrians) do not need a rational justification for their religious beliefs? I decided to explore this problem here.
There are many robust responses to this particular presuppositionalist challenge. But before we dive into that, let's first understand the issue.
Philosopher Stephen Law explained their argument very concisely: "If Mike's belief system is taking a beating, rationally speaking, Mike can adopt the last-ditch tactic of employing this skeptical argument: Whenever we argue about the truth or falsity of a belief, we apply our powers of reason. But why suppose that reason is itself a reliable route to the truth? We might attempt to justify our use of reason, of course. But any justification of reason that we offer will itself rely on reason. Relying on reason to justify our reliance on reason is a bit like taking a secondhand car salesman's word for it that he is trustworthy – it's an entirely circular justification, and so no justification at all! So, it turns out that our reliance on reason is entirely unjustified. It's a leap of faith! ... But if reliance on reason cannot be justified, then, because every rational justification relies on reason, so no belief can be justified. But if no belief is justified, then, ultimately, everything is a faith position! But then your belief is no more reasonable than mine. Get out of that! ... The skeptical argument offers Mike a wonderful get-out-of-jail-free card. It allows him to walk away with his head held high, saying, ‘So you see? In the last analysis, our beliefs are equally (ir)rational! They're both faith positions!’” (Believing Bullshit, p.84)
George Smith also presented a useful and clear summary: “Among Christian theorists, overt skepticism is most often employed by Protestant theologians who wish to establish some variant of the ‘primacy of faith’ doctrine. These theologians argue that... we must have faith in reason, faith in logic, faith in the existence of the external world, and faith in the basic tenets of science. If the atheist objects to the irrationality of Christian faith, the Christian replies that the atheist faces the same problem – except that the atheist places his faith in reason and science instead of in God... [Logical] principles are simple enough, and few people would be foolish enough to deny them outright. But some Christian theorists... argue that the laws of logic are without rational foundation and must be taken on faith. On what grounds is this assertion made? Usually on the grounds that the laws of logic, strictly speaking, cannot be proven true. Therefore, concludes the theologian, in the absence of proof, we must accept them on faith. What does it mean to say that the laws of logic cannot be proved? Formal proof involves an inference from a set of given premises, and in the case of logical laws, there are no available premises from which they can be derived. Any attempt to prove the Law of Identity, for example, would result in question begging, because any attempted proof would presuppose the Law of Identity. The laws of logic are incapable of proof.” (Atheism, pp. 173, 175)
Philosopher Gene Witmer made a similar comment: “One point that comes up frequently in these exchanges with presuppositionalists is the status of assumptions or presuppositions. ... It's said that the presuppositionalist theist presupposes such things as that the Bible is God's word, that God exists... and so on, and that this is okay. ... The point is just this: It seems that some beliefs are reasonable even without being supported by argument. We all, in fact, take beliefs formed by perceptual processes to be true, where we do this without having an argument for doing so. If you say that you have an argument for thinking that perception can be trust[ed], this argument will itself rely on premises; the question you face, then, is whether these premises... can [be] defend[ed] by argument, or whether they are just taken for granted. Eventually you must, it seems, end up with some premises or ways of forming beliefs that you just take for granted. If this is indeed inevitable – taking some beliefs for granted without argument – then a very nice question here is just: why some beliefs and not others? The presuppositionalist might claim that he takes for granted the belief that God exists, is the author of scripture, and so on; and he can say... that he is merely doing what all the rest of us do when we take for granted that our senses are mostly accurate detectors of the external world and so on. ... It's important not to try to respond to the presuppositionalist by insisting that you, in fact, never take anything for granted. If you make such a bold and unqualified claim, you're setting yourself up for a fall... as this is almost surely false, and it leaves you very vulnerable.” (Responding to Some Popular Christian Apologetics, pp. 5-6, 18)
These 'ways of forming beliefs' are axiomatic. An axiom, as Ayn Rand puts it, is the fundamentally given which requires no proof, but on which all proofs rest (Rand, 1990). In other words, it is foundational. Axioms justify (and serve as a basis for) non-axiomatic beliefs without themselves needing or receiving any intrasystematic justification. Other truths are made to rest on them, but they rest on no others: like the axioms of a deductive system, they provide the ultimate support for the entire structure. (Resche, 2003).
Some examples of things we just take for granted are reason, memory and (perhaps) sense-perception; they are axiomatic sources of belief, justification, and knowledge. For example, through memory, we derive the knowledge of our own past, words, concepts, meanings and so on. Through perception we acquire (primarily) justified beliefs and knowledge about the external world and its past, while through reason (viz., the rules of thought, deductive and inductive inferences) we make sense of that information received through the senses, we judge what is possible or impossible, what follows from what and what is likely or unlikely. Granted, reason yields no knowledge or justified belief until experience, including perception, acquaints one with concepts sufficient for grasping a priori propositions. But despite this genetic dependence of reason on experience, in one way reason may be an even firmer basis of justification and knowledge than experience. For there may be truths of reason that are so simple and luminously self-evident that they cannot be rationally denied, at least at a time when one comprehendingly considers them (Audi, 1987).
As philosopher Trent Dougherty explained: “We have the traditional sources of evidence – Sensation, Understanding, Memory, and Introspection. Each of these sources bears testimony to the realm of truth relevant to it. Sensation tells us that there is a cat on the roof. Understanding tells us that numerical equality is transitive. Memory tells us what we had for breakfast. Introspection tells us what we experience and believe. Each of these sources sometimes speaks with conviction and sometimes it speaks more tentatively.” (Problems in Epistemology and Metaphysics, p.132)
Wilson is arguing that if we can just take for granted the reliability of these sources of knowledge, we can take for granted the existence of God. However, that's a non-sequitur. It is like saying, "I can use equation/formula X to measure the speed of my car, so I can also use the same equation/formula X to determine the relation between the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it." That's ridiculous. There are criteria that dictate in which situation it is allowed to use an equation/formula – I have no doubt that most of us have suffered at least once in school because we confusedly applied the wrong mathematical formula to a given situation and, as a result, got invalid/incorrect results. Of course, it is possible to apply it, but it is wrong. Likewise, as philosopher David Kyle Johnson has pointed out, reason (once assumed to be reliable) imposes limits on what can be accepted without argument, and unfortunately, the existence of God does not fall into this category:
"The fact that it is okay to believe one thing on faith – like the law of non-contradiction or that “the future will resemble the past” (i.e., induction) – does not entail that it is okay to believe whatever you want by faith, or anything else specifically by faith (like that God exists or that the Bible is true). If it did entail that, anybody – even the flat earther – could use it as an excuse to believe anything they wanted. “You believe in reason by faith; I believe the Earth is flat by faith; we’re just the same.” Essentially, using the fact that you can’t argue for the foundations of logic without arguing in a circle as an excuse to believe anything else by faith just opens up the flood gates for any non-sense to claim legitimacy – and clearly the theist (and specifically apologists) don’t want that; they want to argue against certain positions, wouldn’t think it acceptable to claim – on faith – that God is actually a flying spaghetti monster. They would reject anyone who just claimed, on faith, that the premises of their arguments were false. It seems acceptable to believe the laws of reason (non-contradiction, induction) “on faith” (without argument) because (a) it’s not possible, by definition, to avoid it (any argument for them would beg the question); (b) any argument against them would be self-refuting (because it would have to assume the laws of reason) and (c) we cannot operate in the world without doing so. Communication is impossible without assuming things like non-contradiction, and we can’t even walk around the world without assuming induction. (Rejecting induction – doing the same thing but expecting a different result – is the classic definition of insanity). Merely typing on my keyboard requires me to assume that the future will resemble the past. To “excuse” believing anything else by faith, you would have to show that it meets at least one (if not all three) of these criteria. The belief that God exists, or that the Bible is true, do not. It is possible to avoid such belief, arguments against them are not self-refuting, and we can operate in the world without them. ... Such belief is therefore in a completely different category (than belief in the laws of reason) and thus “faith in reason” cannot be used as an excuse to believe them by faith." (Personal Correspondence)
Philosopher Nicholas Everitt affirmed Dr. Kyle's third criterion in his book:
"We might first question whether [belief in God] is a genuine practice, analogous to sensory practice, memory practice and so on. One point to note here is that all of the other practices are non-optional: every human being of any cognitive competence relies on her senses, on her memory, on her power of introspection, and on her reasoning power. A creature who did not rely on these cognitive practices would quickly become completely helpless to secure its own survival, and would either die or become passively dependent on others. ... Those who steer their course through the world relying on (for example) their sense-generated belief that an angry bull is approaching, or that there is a sheer drop beside the path, or that there is a fire in the hearth, are more likely to survive... than those who think there is no reason to think their senses reveal anything independent of their own minds. The same is true for reliance on memory. A person who placed no reliance on any of her memory beliefs would be as helpless as a baby, and would quickly perish. By contrast, [theistic belief] is entirely optional. It is possible to lead a long, healthy and flourishing life without [it]." (On the Non-existence of God, p.167)
Philosopher J.J.C. Smart made a similar point: “Religious apologists do sometimes defend a leap of faith by saying that science itself depends on a giant leap of faith. They might point out that since Hume raised the philosophical problem of induction it has appeared that we have no reason to believe that the future will be like the past. According to Hume, laws of nature are mere regularities whose continuance in the future cannot be justified by reason. ... There does nevertheless seem to be an important difference [between belief in God and induction]. Many people have no difficulty in living without religious belief, but no philosophical skeptic about induction could continue to live if he or she really believed this skepticism.” (Atheism and Theism, p.50)
There is another sense in which axiomatic beliefs are “non-optional”, namely, in the sense that we can’t disbelieve them, as philosopher Lawrence Sanger pointed out in his thesis:
“It is psychologically impossible to withhold [axiomatic beliefs]. ... For example, it is impossible for me (in present circumstances, of course) to disbelieve or withhold the belief... that I have been alive for longer than a day, that as I write it is day and the sun is shining, that 2+2=4, that other persons exist, etc. ... In some sense, in present circumstances, I must believe them. I will describe such beliefs as ‘irresistible’. ... This point is emphasized by Wittgenstein at length. ... For very many adult human beings, very often, the belief that their own senses supply them with basically accurate information cannot be denied. Similarly, at most times most people would find it impossible to doubt that their most vivid memories of events are of events that actually occurred (even if they would admit that they could be wrong about some details). The same remarks apply to other of the most basic ways we have of gathering information about the world: introspection... rational intuition... and induction.” (Epistemic Circularity, pp. 198-200)
Dr. Kyle elaborated further his thoughts in his paper Taking a Leap of Faith (pp. 257-260). It is worth quoting him at length:
"Inspired by science, some people claim that faith is always irrational. In response, however, it is pointed out that it seems impossible to do science without faith – specifically, faith in induction, the notion that the future will resemble the past. If sodium and chloride have combined together and produced salt before, we can infer that anytime anyone anywhere puts sodium and chloride together, they will get salt. ... Why does belief in induction require faith? Because there is no way to gather evidence or argue for it without assuming it. We might present an argument like this: Induction has been reliable in the past. Therefore, induction will be reliable in the future. Notice, though, that this argument is an inductive argument; it infers what the future will be like based on our experience of the past. To even make the argument, you have to already assume the truth of the conclusion – that induction is reliable. This makes the argument circular, and no circular argument can provide sufficient evidence for its conclusion. Circular arguments don’t work for the same reason that Penrose steps are impossible – your first step can’t also be your last.
This problem of induction was most famously raised by the philosopher David Hume (1711–1776), and is indicative of many similar problems. When we make arguments, we make all kinds of assumptions. We assume modus ponens – that if a conditional (If P then Q) is true, and the antecedent of that conditional is also true (P), then the consequent (Q) must follow. We assume non-contradiction – that nothing can be both true and false at the same time. In short, to make arguments, we have to assume that the basic rules of argumentation are valid. But how could you present an argument for such rules without assuming them? You can’t present an argument for the reliability of arguments without (once again) making a circular argument. In general, we might say that anyone who says that “evidence is reliable and it’s never rational to believe anything without it” is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Where is their evidence for their claim that evidence is reliable? If they have none, then they merely assume it and thus believe it by faith (that is, without evidence) and break their own rule. If they try to provide evidence, they argue in a circle and thus fail to meet their own criteria for believing their own claim.
To reason and argue at all, we have to have faith in argument and evidence. However, there doesn’t seem to be anything irrational about doing so. In fact, if you rejected such things (and I’m not even sure you could), there would seem to be something seriously wrong with you. Einstein suggested that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Induction suggests that doing the same thing gets the same results; to not have faith in induction would be insane! If you truly think that the fact that the hot stove burned you last time is not reason to think it will burn you next time, there is something wrong with your head (and very shortly your hand). The same holds for all the rules we have been talking about: modus ponens, non-contradiction. Try to live your life without these rules. Try to find someone who doesn’t. Even primitive societies, which may not even have language to articulate such rules, assume them in their everyday life. Not even the most uncivilized tribesmen would come to the edge of a cliff and think, “Everything else fell, but I won’t.” Everyone believes, in general, in the reliability of evidence and the basic rules of argumentation. And if you reject these rules, you can never argue or even communicate meaningfully again. To even make sense of what you say, I have to assume that when you say something is true, you necessarily believe the opposite of that thing is false. I can’t do this, if you reject non-contradiction. Although belief in the reliability of argument and evidence in general must be taken on faith, that faith is universal. No one disagrees. We couldn’t get along without it. It seems to be hard-wired into us – probably because it has worked so well in the past! So, it seems, there is nothing irrational about faith in argument and evidence itself.
But, of course, this does not mean that faith in anything and everything is rational. Contrary to the desires of those who want to believe in Dream Ghosts, regular ghosts, unicorns, and so on, the fact that belief in the hard-wired, uncontroversial, universally asserted reliability of evidence and argumentation is rational, does not open up the flood gates and allow anyone to rationally believe anything they want. As we have seen, most faith is irrational. ... One of the key components that made belief in induction and the rules of argumentation rational was the fact that they are universally shared, and that to reject them would seem to make one insane. ... We have [therefore] concluded that it is not rational to hold a belief without sufficient evidence (by faith), especially on existential matters, unless that belief is uncontroversial and universally shared or the rejection of that belief would indicate insanity. This is our criterion for judging the rationality of belief by faith. ... Some philosophers might disagree and argue that the unavoidability and uncontroversial nature of belief in induction and argumentation indicates that it is not faith. Such a disagreement, however, is merely semantic; such philosophers simply have a different definition of faith – something along the line of “avoidable belief without sufficient evidence.” There is no real difference in our positions. ... I am comfortable distinguishing between rational, and irrational, faith."
There isn't much to add to Dr. Kyle's nice explanation, except that induction and sense-perception may be justified by reason. First let's consider sense-perception. Philosopher Stephen Law wrote: “Suppose a Theist finds herself on the losing side of a debate with atheists about the existence of God. Her own arguments for the existence of God have been shown to be weak, and she is struggling to deal with the evidential problem of evil... raised by her opponents. As a last-ditch strategy she may try this: she may admit that her own belief involves a leap of faith, but then add that her atheist opponents make a similar leap of faith when it comes to trusting their senses. ... How can they know their senses are a reliable guide to the truth? ... So, it seems atheists cannot justify their belief in such an external world. But if atheists cannot justify their belief in such an external world, then they don't know that such a world exists. Their belief that there is such a world must involve a huge leap of faith. ... [However], this is certainly controversial – some philosophers would say we are justified in supposing there is a physical world of mountains, oceans, trees, houses, and so on because that hypothesis provides the best available explanation of what we experience, a better explanation than the Matrix-type hypothesis that it's all an elaborate computer-generated illusion.” (Believing Bullshit, pp. 86-88) (For further reading on this solution, see McCain, 2011).
Similarly, philosopher Norman Kretzmann objected that not all justifications for sense-perception are epistemically circular: "I am one of those who believe that ‘we are in a much better position to judge that sense perception is a source of justification than we are in the case of theistic perception’. I want to point out one form of support for SP [sense perception] against which I think Alston’s charge of epistemic circularity doesn’t stick. He devotes an entire section of chapter 3 to the consideration of a formidable... argument in support of the reliability of SP. A superficially similar argument considered earlier was dismissed ‘as infected with epistemic circularity. This argument is specifically designed to avoid that disability. The earlier argument appealed to our success in making accurate predictions of external, physical states of affairs. Hence it required reliance on SP to determine that those predictions are often correct. But this argument appeals to our success in predicting the course of our sense experience. ... Hence no reliance on the perception of external states of affairs is presupposed by the argument. ...The argument is quite straightforward: we can effectively anticipate our experience by taking it as revelatory of the external world in accordance with SP; therefore, SP is quite probably reliable. What could be more direct or convincing?’. It turns out that this attractive, definitive-seeming synopsis of the argument is expressed too strongly from Alston’s point of view. What strikes him as unwarranted is the use of the first-person plural. ‘If we are to avoid epistemic circularity I cannot appeal to the success of other people in predicting their sense experience. For apart from reliance on SP I have no reason to think that there are other people, much less that they make use of SP and enjoy predictive success thereby. Hence the explanandum is restricted to my predictive success when using SP... So far as the argument goes, I might be the only person who enjoys such success from using SP... [and] if all the other billions of human beings who have existed have failed to reap such benefits from the use of SP, we could hardly conclude that SP is reliable. ... Of course, I am not suggesting that this is actually the case. The point is that if I am to avoid epistemic circularity, I can’t assume either that it is or that it isn’t'. In introducing this argument Alston says that its ‘whole point’ is that ‘by taking individual sense experiences as revelatory of external physical realities and connecting up our sense experiences through a detour into the physical world, we can do an incomparably better job of predicting those experiences than we could by looking for purely phenomenal patterns’. And even in objecting to the argument, he concedes that it can show that SP is reliable for the person employing the argument. It seems clear to me, then, that I can legitimately put these observations together to yield an epistemically non-circular assurance that the other people I seem to experience in SP do exist and behave pretty much as I perceive them to do. And since I often perceive them succeeding in predicting their experiences when they appear to be using SP, and since SP is reliable for me, I think that this argument’s use of the first-person plural is not unwarranted. Consequently, I’m not convinced that Alston has shown that all attempts to support SP’s reliability are characterized by epistemic circularity." (St Teresa, William Alston, and the Broadminded Atheist, pp. 79-80)
Second, let's consider induction. The naturalist and counter-apologist Jeffery Lowder wrote the following: "I assume that the laws of nature is Ham's way of referring to Hume's problem of induction. If so, then, again following [philosopher] Paul Draper, I think the answer is that, God or no God, induction is justified because uniformity is intrinsically more probable than variety. And notice that this answer does not depend upon induction, so it avoids circularity." He continued: "Very briefly: the intrinsic epistemic probability of a proposition is determined by modesty, coherence, and nothing else. Coherence measures how well the different 'parts' or logical consequences of a proposition fit together. Modesty measures how much a proposition says. H1 is more modest than H2 if H1 is smaller in scope than H2 and/or if H1 is less specific than H2. Hypotheses that attribute real uniformity to the world are more coherent than those that attribute real variety, either at a time or over time. The justification for the statement, 'uniformity is intrinsically more probable than variety,' is that it is a necessary truth."
Now, the presuppositionalist might reply that while uniformity is a necessary condition for justifying induction, it is not a sufficient condition. In response, I would agree and simply present a solution, in addition to Lowder's argument for uniformity, that is sufficient. That is to say, Lowder's argument alone doesn't solve the problem of induction, but it might solve it in conjunction with the following argument:
"The... “Nomological-explanatory” solution, which has been put forward by Armstrong, BonJour and Foster... appeals to Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE), which says that we should infer that the hypothesis which provides the best explanation of the evidence is probably true. Proponents of this approach take Inference to the Best Explanation to be a mode of inference which is distinct from the type of “extrapolative” inductive inference that Hume was trying to justify. They also regard it as a type of inference which although non-deductive, is justified a priori. ... Once it has been established that [uniformity obtains], the second step is to argue that out of all possible metaphysically robust explanations, the “straight” inductive explanation is the best one, where the straight explanation extrapolates the observed frequency to the wider population. For example, given that a coin has some objective chance of landing heads, the best explanation of the fact that m/n heads have been so far observed, is that the objective chance of the coin landing heads is m/n. And this objective chance determines what happens not only in observed cases but also in unobserved cases. The Nomological-Explanatory solution relies on taking IBE as a rational, a priori form of inference which is distinct from inductive inferences like inference I." (Leah Henderson, The Problem of Induction) (For a different approach, see Carrier, 2004).
Of course, in a way, this doesn't really solve the problem as one still must assume the reliability of reason. But, if successful, it would reduce the number of beliefs that must be taken for granted.
Anyway, I also liked this other quote in which Dr. Kyle specifically talked about faith in God:
"We have already considered what makes faith rational; Aristotle suggested that his laws of thought didn't need an argument because communication is not even possible unless we assume their truth and that means you can't even express doubt about them without assuming that they're true. We could say something similar about trusting things like induction and evidence – you can't argue against the use of arguments or present evidence against the use of evidence; the very act refutes your point. In fact... what has led us to wonder whether we should trust reason is reason itself. So, we might say it is rational to believe something by faith if the act of trying to refute it would refute itself and since belief in careful reasoning and all its tenants clearly qualify, trusting in careful reasoning by faith is rational. [But] can religious belief be justified? We are forced to wonder whether the label of rational faith can be extended beyond the reliability of careful reasoning to a religious notion like "God exists". Can we have faith in that? Well... doubting God's existence isn't self-refuting, so it doesn't qualify as rational for the reasons that I just mentioned." (Is Faith Ever Rational?)
Other philosophers made similar points:
"The assumption that [God] exists… is the starting point of presuppositionalist theology. Presuppositionalists justify this starting point by noting that all systems of knowledge rest on presuppositions of some sort. The utilitarians, for example, may justify their ethical system by claiming that those actions that "produce the greatest good for the greatest number" are ethical, but they are resting this on the fundamental assumption that "the greatest good" is, well, "good." Similarly, scientists who establish some truth about reality through testing and experimentation must explain why it is that we should respect the outcome of experiments. Why should we trust our senses at all? These are but a few of the many inborn assumptions that all bodies of knowledge entail, and the presuppositionalists claim that their position is no different; they assume the truth of God in order to proceed in any rational, meaningful way. This comparison is fundamentally flawed for the following reason: the statement that "all knowledge claims rest on a set of fundamental assumptions" is not tantamount to saying "all assumptions are equally valid." The assumption of the existence of the Christian God can hardly be placed alongside the humble logical assumption that A is not non-A. The presuppositionalist tries to use the necessity of assumptions to justify their initial assumption, but the type of assumptions that exist in other realms of inquiry are not shown to be equivalent to the assumption of the existence of [God and the truth of scripture.]" (A. E. Wright, On Presuppositionalism)
"[John] Frame includes a treatment of circularity when he discusses the presuppositional framework, presumably because he is so frequently questioned on this subject. He responds by arguing that all philosophical systems are unavoidably circular. … [However], Frame commits the informal logical fallacy of false analogy. He argues that rationalists must accept reason as an ultimate starting point, just as empiricists assume sense experience, and so on. So, the Christian may begin with Scripture as a legitimate starting point. But these are not analogous bases. While the rationalist uses reason and the empiricist uses sense experience as tools from which to construct their systems, Frame assumes… the system of Scripture, from which he develops his Christian theism. In other words, he assumes the reality of God’s existence, his personal interaction with humans [and] scripture. Does Frame not realize that, in the name of everyone needing a presupposition, he has imported an entire worldview when the others have only asked for tools? But these presuppositions are not all created equal! Frame allows rationalists and empiricists their methodological “hook,” while he demands the hook, line, and sinker for Christianity! While the others still need to figure out how far their initial assumption will get them, Frame’s kit came ready-made – he’s all set to go fishing! … Frame may respond that the starting point for rationalists and empiricists is more than simply tools. It is true that they build on this basis, but they do not require an entire edifice – both a foundation and a whole system of facts – to be in place before they even begin! To my knowledge, there are no similar analogies from major philosophical traditions. None require anywhere near what Frame does – especially the assumption of an inerrant text simply filled with data from an eternal source! In my opinion, there is simply no way to compare the extent of the Van Tillian presupposition with any other philosophical requirements. Lumping his presupposition with the others is quite convenient, but it is in this sense that I say that his argument presents a false analogy." (Gary Habermas, Five Views on Apologetics)
"As for [John] Frame’s claim that an argument for an ultimate standard of truth must necessarily be circular, it should be noted that it needs not be circular in the same way Frame’s argument is circular. In response to Frame, [William Lane] Craig asserts, ‘How do we decide which arguments are worth believing? We see whether they follow the pattern of valid inference forms, are informally valid, and have true premises that are more plausible than their contradictories.’ On behalf of Craig, it can be argued that the justification for these conditions is not circular; rather it is due to the fact that these conditions are undeniable. This is most evident in the case of the Law of Non-Contradiction: no one (whether Easterner or Westerner) can deny this Law without also affirming it. Indeed, a violation of the laws of logic would be non-existent. For example, consider a ‘shapeless cube’: ‘shapeless’ and ‘cube’ cancel each other out; it is like writing something and then immediately erasing it, so that there is nothing. ... It should be noted that this undeniability is due to the nature of the Law itself; it is not a conclusion that is proved by presupposing the conclusion, and therefore it is not circular in the same way that the Presuppositionalist’s argument is circular. While the conclusion is compatible with the standard used, compatibility is not circularity. Frame might argue that I am still begging the question by presupposing the authority of reason to argue for reason. In reply, since reason is an undeniable tool for knowing reality (and Frame would agree, for he is also using reason to argue for the need to presuppose God), I have to use reason to argue for my position. The Presuppositionalist would also have to presuppose the authority of reason to argue for his position. Philosopher Thomas Nagel observes that ‘The appeal to reason is implicitly authorized by the challenge itself, so this is really a way of showing that the challenge is unintelligible. The charge of begging the question implies that there is an alternative – namely, to examine the reasons for and against the claim being challenged while suspending judgment about it. For the case of reasoning itself, however, no such alternative is available, since any considerations against the objective validity of a type of reasoning are inevitably attempts to offer reasons against it, and these must be rationally assessed. The use of reason in the response is not a gratuitous importation by the defender: it is demanded by the character of the objections offered by the challenger.’ Therefore, a challenge to the authority of reason would itself lead us back to reason. By contrast, a challenge to the authority of God does not itself lead us back to God. ... [Moreover,] one does not need to depend on God in order to justify the belief that one is in pain (one’s direct experience is enough to justify it)! Since presupposing God is not necessary nor undeniable for the justification of our beliefs in the same way that presupposing reason is necessary and undeniable, the assumption of God in response to atheists is a gratuitous importation but the assumption of reason is not." (Andrew Loke, A response to John Frame’s Presuppositional Approach to Faith and Reason)
"A third objection to presuppositionalism deals with the matter of circularity. Van Til in particular notes that his method is circular in that it assumes the truth of Christian theism and the Bible without offering any proof or evidential support. Van Til doesn’t see this as a problem, because he believes all reasoning is ultimately circular. If everyone does it, then there must be no escaping it. ... But then, the fact that the presuppositional method incorporates circularity shouldn’t be seen as a significant problem. In reply, I begin with a distinction from John Warwick Montgomery between presuppositions of method and presuppositions of content. It is certainly true that everyone must begin somewhere when acquiring knowledge. We can’t be expected or required to prove everything we think before we can use it to learn other things about the world. But presuppositions about the best way to go about learning what is true of the world (presuppositions of method) are one thing. We can hardly test the intellectual equipment we have and how it is used in learning without using the equipment itself. So presuppositions of method seem unavoidable, and this isn’t damaging because if we don’t use our intellectual equipment and its basic ways of interacting with the world, it isn’t at all clear how we would learn anything, including whether our equipment functions properly and whether our usual methods of learning are profitable to the end of knowing truth about the world around us. In contrast, presuppositions of content are assumptions about a whole perspective on reality, assumptions about a worldview. This sort of presupposition accepts without any proof the content of a whole worldview (Christian or non-Christian). ... Circularity [of content] should count as sufficient evidence for rejecting the position that holds the presuppositions of content." (John Feinberg, Christian Apologetics in a Modern and Postmodern Era)
“What, then, are we to make of John Haught’s charge that the New Atheism reflects a faith-based ‘scientism’? ... Contra the New Atheists, he says: ‘... The truly thoughtful scientific naturalists – Einstein is a good example – have been honest enough to admit that faith, especially faith that the universe is comprehensible at all, is essential to ground the work of science itself. Moreover, the claim that truth can be attained only by reason and science functioning independently of any faith is itself a faith claim.’ (God and the New Atheism, 2008) ... To the extent that the legitimacy of inference to the best explanation rests on the presupposition that unwavering laws of nature exist, the New Atheists’ embrace of science does involve a ‘faith that the universe is comprehensible.’ But this ‘faith’ assumes far less than religious faith does. The proposition that the best explanation of a given phenomenon may legitimately be accepted as true is a canon of reasoning among all but the most dogged epistemological skeptics. Of course, not everything can be explained: our explanations must begin with certain propositions taken to be facts, and these will be brute facts. The aim is to keep the brute facts to a minimum, reducing the complex, as far as possible, to the simple, without sacrificing the other explanatory virtues. According to the New Atheists, it is superfluous to postulate an intelligent supernatural being possessing an array of prodigious powers, when this postulation serves to explain nothing that cannot be explained within the confines of naturalism. Faith – ungrounded belief – in the existence of such a supernatural being is faith of a wholly different epistemic order than ‘faith’ in the explainability of natural phenomena. Supposing that the New Atheism is, because of its protagonists’ ‘faith’ in the comprehensibility of the universe, just as faith-based as theism is like supposing that a man with 1% body fat is, because he has fat, just as much in need of a diet as a man with 30% body fat.” (Andrew Johnson, An apology for the “New Atheism”, pp. 14-15)
Wilson would probably respond that these philosophers are still assuming the reliability of reason in order to determine what should be believed on faith and what shouldn't, so this is still circular reasoning.
But that entirely misses the point: these philosophers are not trying to justify reason (i.e., prove it is reliable), so it is not circular. Rather, they're simply saying that IF we assume the reliability of reason (and we all assume it; even presuppositionalists do, as Loke pointed out), then we cannot accept whatever we want based on faith because reason (if we assume it) tells us that we can only believe something without evidence if it is axiomatic like reason itself – otherwise we're denying reason and if we deny reason, we're not assuming reason. Why does reason tell us that? Let's briefly recap some of the reasons: (1) if we can just assume whatever we want, then even the flat earther can be justified in holding his imbecilic beliefs and reason clearly tells us this is absurd. As philosopher C. M. Lorkowski observed:
“There is a second, related reason that we should be wary of faith-based justifications of belief—parity. If I say that I do not need to defend or justify my belief, then I implicitly grant everyone else license to do the same. For instance, if I am defending the tenets of Islam on a faith-based account, I cannot say that my view is somehow on superior ground to that of a Christian or Jew or Zoroastrian who does the same. But further, if I cannot give some principled reason why this maneuver is appropriate in religious discourse alone, then I also give license for its use on any topic. One can claim, “I just have faith that my party’s agenda is what is best for the country,” and the like. More generally, if I wish to claim that someone else’s views are wrong or, at the very least, in need of adequate support, then I must deny the appropriateness of their appeal to faith-based justification and thereby deny my own.” (Atheism Considered, p.15)
(2) When we accept things based on good evidence in our everyday life, we get good results most of the time; for instance, if there is sufficient evidence investing money now will be lucrative, it is worth doing so. However, when it is done so based on blind faith, the chances of getting a good result are very small. So, it is not wise to act based on faith. As philosopher Julian Baggini stated:
"It is not faith that justifies my belief that drinking fresh, clean water is good for me, but evidence. It is not faith that tells me it is not a good idea to jump out of the windows of tall buildings, but experience." (Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, p.31)
Epistemologically speaking, 'irrational faith' (as Dr. Kyle puts it) is no different than throwing a fair coin as a way of discovering truths, as philosopher Peter Boghossian pointed out:
"If one wants to know reality, is one process just as good as any other? So then are some processes bad? ... [What about] blatantly unreliable processes like flipping coins and goat sacrifice[?] It’s [clear] that flipping coins is not a reliable basis upon which [people] should make decisions – heads I’ll be a math major and tails I’ll be a dance major. ... So if there are some processes that are bad, like flipping coins, that means that you can’t rely upon them. ... [Similarly,] it is impossible to figure out which of [the various religious contradictory] claims is incorrect if the tool one uses to do so is faith. As a tool, as an epistemology, as a method of reasoning, as a process for knowing the world, faith cannot adjudicate between competing claims (“Muhammad was the last prophet” versus “Joseph Smith was a prophet”). Faith cannot steer one away from falsehood and toward truth. ... The only way to figure out which claims about the world are likely true, and which are likely false, is through reason and evidence."
George Smith reinforced the point: “[Coin flipping] is completely unreliable, because it is not even a method of ascertaining truth in the first place. ... Since coin flipping contains no epistemological standards to distinguish truth from falsity, it cannot qualify as a method of gaining knowledge. ... Coin flipping as such conflicts with the requirements of reason; therefore, all propositions of coin flipping (i.e., all beliefs based on this procedure) also conflict with reason. Returning to the concept of faith, we may say the following: if the Christian wishes to argue that the “truths” of faith do not conflict with the truths of reason, he must first demonstrate that faith is capable of distinguishing truth from falsity. He must present the epistemological credentials of faith, the method by which faith arrives at truth. How do we distinguish an article of faith from a whim or a coin flip? ... This is the essence of faith: to consider an idea as true even though it cannot meet the test of truth, to consider an idea as having a referent in reality while rejecting the process by which man knows reality.” (Atheism, pp. 148-149, 151)
Theist philosopher John DePoe made a similar point: "Objectively, epistemic justification requires a connection to truth. This means that justification necessarily indicates that a belief enjoys some intrinsic and nonarbitrary link to truth. Believing that the butler’s fingerprints are on the murder weapon (in conjunction with a set of background beliefs), for example, indicates the truth that the butler committed the murder because the butler’s fingerprints are unlikely to be on the murder weapon if he is innocent and they are very likely to be on the weapon if he is guilty. Alternatively, thinking that the butler committed a crime on nothing more than the evidence one gleans in a response from a “magic eight ball” (a gag toy that reveals random answers to yes/no questions) is exceptionally dubious because the random answers of the magic eight ball are in no way connected to the truth of the matter. Clearly, one feature that distinguishes justified beliefs from unjustified beliefs is that they possess an objective connection to truth. ... Starting with theology is problematic... because there are many different and incompatible theological traditions vying for our allegiance. Why adopt Reformed Christian theology rather than Shi’ite Muslim theology or Theravada Buddhism...? Without good epistemic principles to evaluate the truthful integrity of religious worldviews, intellectual judgments about which theology (or atheology) are justified must be decided by nonrational factors. To the contrary, I believe that it is important to apply sound epistemic principles logically prior to theology precisely because decisions of this importance ought to be decided by truth-indicative standards. If the knowledge and application of these standards are unavailable until one has already accepted [the] correct theology..., then acquiring true theology... is at best a product of luck." (Debating Christian Religious Epistemology, pp. 18-19, 166)
Philosopher Blake McAllister also commented on the issue: “It really only makes sense to believe something when we have some overall indication of its truth. This is commonsensical. Think of the alternative. Imagine that all signs point to a proposition’s falsity or, instead, that there are no indications of its truth at all. If your goal is to believe only what is true, how could it make sense to believe in such a situation? It does not. This is why believing in absence of evidence is unjustified. An example should drive the point home. Say you go to the races where two horses are about to square off: Proposition and Negation. You must decide whether to bet on Proposition, bet on Negation, or to simply keep your money and walk away. You have a family to feed at home, so you do not want to bet recklessly; neither do you want to walk away from easy money if it is there to be had. You get no thrill from gambling. If you bet, you are in it for the money and nothing else. How should you bet? Well, here is how you should not bet. Say you learn that Negation is a champion thoroughbred that just won the Triple Crown whereas Proposition is an old plow horse with a broken leg. In this case, your evidence indicates that Proposition will lose. Accordingly, betting on Proposition is unjustified. Similarly, say you learn that Negation and Proposition are evenly matched or, alternatively, say you have no information about Negation or Proposition at all other than that they are racing each other. In this case, your evidence is neutral with respect to who will win. You really do not have any on‐balance indication one way or the other. If you are as wary of losing money as you are eager to gain it, and you do not want to gamble for gambling’s sake, the only sensible thing to do in this situation is to walk away. Betting really only makes sense if you have some overall indication of who is going to win. In the same way, when operating from a purely intellectual point of view, taking a stance on the truth of a proposition only makes sense when you have some on‐balance indication of its truth or falsity. This line of reasoning is no less apparent when it comes to religious belief. Religious beliefs are just that, beliefs, and they can be assessed from an intellectual point of view like any other belief.” (Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, pp. 270-271)
(For further reading on other lame attempts at harmonizing irrational faith with reason – and why they fail – see Martin; pp. 249-278)
Now, suppose that the presuppositionalist accepts that if we assume the reliability of reason, then we must reject faith on non-axiomatic beliefs. But instead of providing justification for his theistic beliefs or demonstrating that belief in God is axiomatic, he claims to reject reason and choose to accept faith in God. Of course, you can't argue with someone who assumes rational argumentation itself is invalid; it will be a waste of everyone's time and will only bring frustration. As Dr. Kyle stated in one of his lectures:
"Once understood, the laws [of thought] are obviously true. So obvious, in fact, that they need no argument and that's good because, since they're the laws that underlie all arguments, you can't present an argument for these laws without just arguing in a circle. But if anyone ever says they reject these laws, you can simply say what Aristotle would have: "I can't talk to you." It's impossible to communicate with someone who rejects these laws. Imagine a conversation with someone who rejects [the law of] non-contradiction and thinks something can both be true and false [at the same time]: — "Were you at Steve's party?" — "Yeah. I had a great time." — "Was Bob there?" — "How would I know? I wasn't there." — "You just said you were there!" — "No, I didn't!" — "Well, where were you?" — "I was at Steve's party." Clearly, even engaging in discussion with someone who rejects logic's axioms is a waste of time." (How Do We Reason Carefully?)
Philosopher Keith Parsons wrote something similar: "We respect the law of non-contradiction because if we do not we cannot say anything at all. In other words, as Aristotle said long ago, if someone wants to deny the law of non-contradiction, don't say anything. Just wait and let them try to say something."
Philosopher Mike Saenz wrote: “The person who denies the law [of non-contradiction] actually affirms the law in the act of denial. His denial affirms the law unless he is willing to admit that his ‘denial’ could at the same time be an ‘affirmation,’ or that the ‘law’ he is referring to could at the same time be a ‘non-law’ (or for that matter, that his ‘admission’ could at the same time be a ‘non-admission’). It then becomes apparent that any meaningful statement (i.e., a statement that does not mean ‘A’ and ‘non-A’ at the same time and in the same respect) affirms the law of non-contradiction (Aristotle 315).”
The same applies, for example, to the law of identity as philosopher John Hospers observed: “Aristotle considered these [logical] principles, or laws, to be presupposed in all thought. Try to deny them and see what happens: ‘I deny that A is A.’ ‘I see. And is your denial a denial?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Then A is A. You presupposed that A is A in what you just said. You can’t even think about anything without assuming this principle. Take anything at all and call it A; then it is A that you are talking about or thinking about and not something else. How could the A you are talking about also not be A? If it’s a chair you are thinking about, then it’s a chair, not a tomato.’” (An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, p.56)
Philosopher Winfried Corduan gave the example modus ponens: “Now let us stipulate that I am not just constructing arguments for my own edification, but that I’m also interested in having other people agree with my conclusion. What does one usually presuppose when attempting to build a simple argument? For one thing, we must have the same fundamental, intuitive awareness of validity, which can be expressed in formal terms. … [For example], Modus Ponens: If it is true that if a statement A is true then B must be true, and if we know that A is true, then B must also be true. Efforts by some philosophers to argue that in theory this principle could be dispensed with, are clearly self-defeating. E.g., ‘If it is possible that logical principles [do] not necessarily [obtain], and modus ponens is a logical principle, then modus ponens [does] not necessarily [obtain].’ The logic behind this statement obviously takes the form of modus ponens and turns the purported argument into gibberish...” (Without Excuse)
Philosopher John Searle beautifully explained the issue: “Various forms of relativism, sometimes under the label of “postmodernism,” have attacked the idea of rationality as such. Rationality is supposed to be essentially oppressive, hegemonic, culturally relative, etc. I am as appalled as anyone by these attacks, but I do not bother to answer them because I do not believe they can even be made intelligible. For example, I have sometimes been challenged, “What is your argument for rationality?” – a nonsensical challenge, because the notion of “argument” presupposes standards of rationality. … The idea of a “defense” in the form of argument, reasons, etc. presupposes constraints of rationality, and hence the demand for such a defense is nonsensical. Constraints of rationality are universal and built into the structure of mind and language, specifically into the structures of intentionality and speech acts. …rationality as such neither requires nor even admits of a justification, because all thought and language, and hence all argument, presupposes rationality.” (Rationality in Action, pp. 13-14)
The good news is that, strictly speaking, most theists (in my experience) don't really believe in God based on 'irrational faith'. They are taught by their parents and religious leaders that God exists – why would their loved ones lie to them? – and the religious community presents anedoctal evidence of miracles (e.g., some disease being cured or an accident being miraculously avoided), strange events that can't be coincidental, personal experience with God or angels, exorcisms and so on. Moreover, many of them, when asked why they believe in God, will point to nature itself; how complex it is and how it apparently presents features of design, "Look at the trees and the beautiful blue sky. Where did it all come from? Out of nothing and for nothing?". So, while (most of) these reasons, on which the belief in God is grounded, are fallacious and weak (as unbiased people who are philosophically and scientifically equipped quickly realize), it should not be considered faith; the indoctrination, as well as this supposed evidence is, roughly speaking, almost entirely responsible for the belief in God. Apologist William Craig admitted it: "As a boy I believed that God existed because when I looked up at the stars at night I thought that it all had to come from somewhere. I had never heard of the cosmological argument, but that was my reasoning all the same." (Five Views on Apologetics)
This is relevant because if the honest apologist is open to reason, then he will have to apply rational standards of evidence to his non-axiomatic beliefs. As philosopher Michael Tooley pointed out:
“The presuppositionalist objection to evidentialism set out in the previous section is open to a decisive answer. For the presuppositionalist claims that we all start from worldviews, and that we decide on the basis of those worldviews which beliefs are plausible and which not. But if there are states of affairs that we [all] are directly aware of [i.e., axioms]... and if, in addition, all other justified beliefs ultimately are justified via their relations to [these axioms], then there is a natural starting point for any inquiry into whether a given belief is justified.” (A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy, p.317)
Philosopher John Shook complemented: “The real target [of presuppositionalists] could not be reason, logic, or science; these things are just intellectual tools, not entire worldviews competing with Christianity.” (The God Debates, pp. 178-179)
These tools are what philosopher Richard Howe called ‘trans-worldview’: “In insisting upon a ‘biblical’ worldview, there is a danger of being incoherent or self-defeating. Depending upon how one ends up understanding exactly what a worldview is, how could one decide to make his worldview ‘biblical’ without that decision already being affected by his worldview? If one's worldview is ‘the framework from which [he views] reality’ which determines how he ‘sees the world’ and, further, what he takes to be true or false, then on what basis could he choose a ‘biblical’ worldview? If he chooses a ‘biblical worldview’ and the worldview on which he made that choice is itself ‘biblical’ then he had a biblical worldview before he had a biblical worldview which is incoherent. If he chooses a ‘biblical worldview’ and the worldview on which he made the choice is itself not ‘biblical’ then he is defeating the purpose for wanting to choose a ‘biblical’ worldview in the first place. This illustrates the unavoidable and undeniable reality that some of our knowledge/beliefs are trans-worldview. To be trans-worldview means that there are some aspects of reality that are undeniable, which is to say, we cannot fail to know them. To be trans-worldview means that there are some aspects of reality that are true in every worldview.” (Why I Don't Have a Biblical Worldview And You Shouldn't Either)
This starting point (or intellectual tool) is reason, perception and memory. As Dan Courtney correctly noted:
“In fact, a worldview is not the starting place for knowledge, but is a step along the path that is supported by more fundamental truths. The most fundamental truths, Wittgenstein’s “bedrock”, are what I have referred to as axioms. An axiom is a... starting point that must be accepted as true because the truth of the contrary would make intelligibility impossible. Even the Biblical Christian worldview posited by the Presuppositionalist is not “bedrock” as they would like us to believe. The scriptures that are claimed to be inerrant must be experienced by the Christian through their senses. Like the non-Christian, they must assume that their reading or hearing of the Biblical passages is at least provisionally accurate. They must assume they have some basic understanding of the language that is used, and they must assume that they can remember what the passage stated in order to act upon it. They must assume that the meanings of the words don’t change from moment to moment, and they must assume that the laws of logic govern how the information should be interpreted. In other words, they must begin with the same axioms as the non-Christian when seeking to understand anything, including their Bible. This is the common ground that Presuppositionalists claim doesn’t exist between theist and atheist. This is the ground that makes all knowledge possible. ... [Likewise], before... any Presuppositionalist, can assert the primacy of the Christian God, they must first conceive of such an entity. This conception entails, at a minimum, that the Presuppositionalist accepts their own existence; that they can receive and comprehend information about this God; and that this God comports with the fundamental laws of logic.” (How Presuppositionalism Undermines Christianity, pp. 75-76)
Philosopher Paul Boghossian wrote something similar: “Yes, the Cardinal consults his Bible to find out what to believe about the heavens, rather than using the telescope; but he doesn’t divine what the Bible itself contains, but rather reads it using his eyes. Nor does he check it every hour to make sure that it still says the same, but rather relies on induction to predict that it will say the same tomorrow as it does today. And, finally, he uses deductive logic to deduce what it implies about the make-up of the heavens. For many ordinary propositions, then – propositions about what J. L. Austin called ‘‘medium-sized specimens of dry goods’’ – Bellarmine uses exactly the same epistemic system we use.” (Fear of Knowledge, pp. 103-104)
Philosopher Steven Bland explained Boghossian’s point further: “Boghossian argues that the disagreement between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine is not a case of epistemic incommensurability because they do not in fact subscribe to different epistemic systems. Bellarmine does treat Biblical scripture as a source of information about the world, alongside perception, memory, induction and the like, but this does not constitute a departure from Galileo’s epistemic system. Quite the opposite: Boghossian insists that Bellarmine cannot consult scriptural evidence without appealing to epistemic methods that Galileo regards as basic. ... Furthermore, Boghossian insists that there is no principled reason to trust naturalistic methods when investigating terrestrial objects but not when investigating celestial bodies. It would be incoherent for Bellarmine to trust the deliverances of perception, induction, and deduction when interpreting scripture, but not when determining the earth’s state of motion. Consequently, Boghossian thinks that these naturalistic methods must be basic for Bellarmine, as they are for Galileo, while Biblical revelation is a non-basic method whose truth-conduciveness must be settled empirically. The disagreement between Galileo and Bellarmine, then, does not concern distinct epistemic systems, but the evidence for Biblical authority on matters of cosmology, considered within a shared epistemic system of naturalistic norms.” (Epistemic Relativism and Scepticism, pp. 176-177)
Philosopher Richard Howe made a similar point, but focusing on hermeneutics: “Every reader of the Bible has some method, whether consciously or unconsciously, of how to interpret it, which is to say that every reader of the Bible has some hermeneutic. The question is where does one get one's principles of hermeneutics? It is impossible to get one's principles of hermeneutics from the Bible itself. This is so because if one could understand the Bible in order to get these hermeneutical principles, then he understands the Bible before he has his principles of understanding the Bible, which means he would not need the principles he was seeking to get from the Bible. On the other hand, if he thinks he cannot understand the Bible without some principles of understanding the Bible (and I would argue that this has to be the case), then that means he could not understand the Bible enough to get the principles themselves if he was committed to the notion that he gets those very principles from the Bible. Either way, he runs into an impossible situation. We see, then, that it is impossible to get all of one's principles of interpretation of the Bible from the Bible itself, even if he can get some of them. Instead, they have to come from somewhere else.” (Christian Apologetics, p.9)
Professional philosopher John DePoe agrees: "General epistemic principles, like those that prescribe when justified beliefs or knowledge follows from a reliance on different doxastic sources such as sense perception, memory... and rational intuition, are utilized in the discovery of theological truths. When reading the Bible, for instance, to learn theological truths about humans’ covenantal relationship to God, one must exercise epistemic principles regarding sense perception, memory... and rational intuition. With bad epistemic principles, a person’s theological investigations will almost certainly go astray. ... Placing theology categorically before epistemology may sound pious; however, it is not feasible." (Debating Christian Religious Epistemology, pp. 166, 168)
Thus, Christians and non-Christians can debate rationally without any problem since both must begin with the same starting point, as theologian and professor of philosophy Paul Feinberg observed:
"It is not as if the believer has one set of logical rules and the unbeliever has another entirely different set of logical rules. These rules of thought are a common ground between believers and unbelievers. ... For instance, both believers and unbelievers think [by] using the law of non-contradiction. ... This does not mean that there is agreement on all areas of human experience. … But because there is some agreement on the rules of thought and other areas of common human experience, we do not simply have to presuppose the truth of Christianity. We can present evidence and debate its meaning." (Five Views on Apologetics)
In response, presuppositionalists claim that "through their revelational epistemology, they believe that they have access to truth that grounds them and allows them to rationally interpret and judge information gathered by the senses and evaluated through reason. But human reason and the senses do not have primacy here; they can only make sense in the light of the standard of ultimate certainty provided by revelation.
As it turns out, this central claim is unable to hold up to some of the simplest scrutiny. I have not yet heard a coherent presuppositionalist response to the following questions: How is it that you know that you have received revelation from God? How do you know that it was not Descartes' demon that deceived you into thinking that it came from God? How do you know that you are not insane?
These questions, if answered honestly, would require the presuppositionalist to employ sensory tools such as "I heard God's voice" or rationalistic tools such as "I knew it wasn't a demon because it said something perfect and holy, and a demon would, by definition, spew evil." The presuppositionalist has pushed back his epistemological justification one degree further than the nonbeliever; but when that further justification is questioned, the edifice crumbles all the same. This all reminds me of the behavior of young children when they play the "why game" – endlessly posing the question "why" in response to each explanation in order to irritate and confound. As it turns out, everyone has trouble answering a series of "whys"; and even though presuppositionalists believe that by appealing to "revelational epistemology" they have somehow won the game, it turns out that they have merely passed the buck over to a god that they still can't account for. "Revelational epistemology" lends the presuppositionalist position no explanatory power whatsoever, and they return to the same playing field as everybody else." (A. E. Wright, On Presuppositionalism)
Dan Courtney made the same point: "Even the Presuppositionalist’s claim of certain knowledge must come to him through his senses; human senses; which the Presuppositionalist will readily admit are fallible. The contradiction of gaining certain knowledge through fallible senses doesn’t seem to faze the Presuppositionalist. He may attempt to escape this contradiction by simply claiming ignorance as to the mechanism by which God supplies his certain knowledge. It is here that a mysterious gap is created in the argument such that certainty can be asserted without being justified. Alternately the knowledge of God may be justified in His Word, which is in turn justified transcendentally. ... [This] is the end of the road for the Presuppositionalist’s justification for certain knowledge, and one that has no foundation. ... It has also been pointed out that the God of which the Presuppositionalist claims certain knowledge could be Decartes’ malevolent god. A god of sufficient means could, it is argued, implant into the Presuppositionalist a subject sense of certainty of the Christian God, which in fact does not exist. ... This argument can be extended to our modern understanding of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, in which the victim becomes, in various degrees, unable to distinguish illusions generated in their brain from actual sense perception. These diseases demonstrate that it is possible for the brain to generate delusions, of which it may believe with complete certainty, while having no referent in reality.” (How Presuppositionalism Undermines Christianity, pp. 46-47, 54-55)
Now, notice both Wright and Courtney assumed the presuppositionalist must receive divine information through the fallible senses. Nevertheless, some presuppositionalists don't agree with that. For example, Sye Ten wrote: "This begs the question that God cannot reveal that logic can be trusted... wholly apart from our senses in such a way that we can be certain of it."
It is important to notice that presuppositionalism is more or less an updated version of a theological/philosophical view from the middle ages called divine illuminationism. Divine illuminationism began with Augustine and was effectively killed off by Peter Olivi and Duns Scotus. Anyone interested in interacting with presuppositionalism should look into how Olivi-Scotus convinced Christian theologians and philosophers for several hundred years that divine illuminationism was dead.
(Note: Thanks to philosopher Daniel Linford for making the above point).
Duns Scotus argued as follows: "When one of those that come together is incompatible with certainty, then certainty cannot be achieved. For just as from one premise that is necessary and one that is contingent nothing follows but a contingent conclusion, so from something certain and something uncertain, coming together in some cognition, no cognition that is certain follows. ... Therefore, these arguments seem to lead to complete uncertainty and to the opinion of the Academicians [i.e., radical skeptics]." (Ordinatio I.3.1.4 n. 221-22).
If one part of a system is fallible, then that fallibility infects the process of a whole. Scotus’s argument is that if the human mind were intrinsically incapable of achieving certain knowledge (due to its intrinsic fallibility and non-omniscience), then not even divine illumination could save it. (Divine Illumination)
Philosopher Billy Dunaway agrees with Scotus' argument: "The purely logical fact – that conjoining a necessary proposition to a contingent one does not thereby produce a necessary proposition – is... structurally analogous to the epistemic fact that adding certitude via divine ideas to unreliable human judgment does not thereby produce a certain judgment. ... If p is necessary, then p is true at every [possible world]. And if q is contingent, then [not-]q is true at some [possible world]. Call this [possible world] w. Since p is true at w and q false at w, the conjunction p&q is false at w as well. And since p&q is false at w, it is not necessary, since it is not true at every [possible world]. So adding contingent q to necessary p produces a contingent proposition. ... We can begin the analogy by taking [possible worlds], not to be points in modal space, but rather points in epistemic space. Epistemic space is relativized to an individual; we can think of each [world] in the space as a world that could easily obtain, and is consistent with what the individual knows. ... Thus a belief is not knowledge just in case there is some [possible world] where there is a belief about the subject matter but the belief is false. The analogy with necessity and contingency is straightforward in this setting. A piece of knowledge (a certitude...) is a belief that is true at all [possible worlds]; a belief that is not knowledge (an uncertainty) has some [world] where that belief is held but is false. Let w be a [world] where both Bq and [not-]q hold – hence, a world where a false belief is held. q is not known. If p is known on the other hand, then Bp and p both hold at w. But, since beliefs agglomerate, B(p&q) is held at w as well, and by the truth table for p&q, p&q is false at w. So the belief B(p&q) is false at w, and p&q is not known. Adding an unknown (uncertain) belief to a known (certain) belief produces an unknown, and not a known, belief. The reason why this is so is exactly the same as in the modal case. ... [Therefore], even an omnipotent God is not always in a position to... ensure knowledge." (Knowledge, Belief, and God, pp. 54, 61-63)
Philosopher Gregory Dawes wrote something similar: "A common characteristic of religions, as we have seen, is to claim that their favoured source of knowledge is infallible or inerrant. ... [However], even if a divine revelation would be, by definition, infallible, our judgement that it is a divine revelation certainly is not." (Religion, Philosophy and Knowledge, p.147)
Philosopher Lydia Schumacher complemented: “By the time Duns Scotus reached the height of his career approximately fifteen years later, the general consensus amongst Franciscans was that [Peter] Olivi’s criticisms were valid and illumination theory obsolete. Although Scotus is normally credited with the elimination of illumination, it would seem that he merely placed the final stamp of approval on a thesis which Olivi originally advanced. The grace of illumination is needed to perfect nature, because nature is not adequate to achieve accurate natural knowledge on its own. … When illumination is said to interfere with the cognitive process... it seems to overtake the work that is technically proper to the mind. Here, human acts of knowing become a “zero-sum game” in which human and divine minds compete to accomplish one and the same task, which is the specifically human task of knowing. In cases where illumination serves to guarantee the truth and certitude of the mind’s ideas, it is hard to say how the mind’s certainty is anything but artificial; and if the mind’s certainty is not generated of its own accord but imposed from the outside, knowledge becomes subject to skepticism: the very end that illumination is introduced to help the intellect evade.” (Divine Illumination, pp. 13, 183, 184)
It is important to notice these rigorous philosophical refutations do not even discuss the fallibility of the senses, but of the "human mind". So they're immune to Sye's response.
Suppose the presuppositionalist replies: "Let's say I'm convinced by your argument. The problem, then, is that I would be using reason which is only certain because it presupposes God's infallible revelation. Therefore, I would be using God's infallible revelation to prove (with certainty) God's revelation isn't my source of infallible/certain knowledge! That's self-defeating!"
The problem with this reply is the fact that our reasoning faculties (which are allegedly certain because of God) tell us reason cannot be properly grounded on God's revelation, and so that's a (certain) logical proof that we're not presupposing God's revelation in order to reach this conclusion in the first place. That's the whole point! Therefore, unless the presuppositionalist can refute our logical arguments against infallible revelation, they have an incoherent/contradictory epistemic system.
Now, what exactly is this "revelational epistemology"? Philosopher John Shook explained it in one of this books:
“[Fundamentalists assert that] reading or hearing scripture can suffice to make Christians, knowers of god. In this way, basic fundamentalism denies that the knowledge of god provided by scripture requires any justification. Christians simply feel certain in their religious beliefs, and nothing more need be asked of them. Some presuppositionalists may add that there is a way to handle the justification problem: simply hold that the truths in scripture are their own justification, that their justification simply shines forth as self-evident.” (The God Debates, p.167)
This opens a whole can of worms. Reformed epistemologists and their opponents have endless debates about this. I'll only sketch some responses to this kind of claim. Let's begin with philosopher Ali Hasan, from the University of Iowa. He wrote:
"Some beliefs are... self-evident, where this means, roughly, that the truth of the belief is obvious to anyone who genuinely understands it. It is self-evident to me that there are no round squares, and that 2 + 2 = 4. [However], we have very good reasons to strongly doubt that belief in God could be self-evident to us in this way. I seem to have no difficulty in understanding the thought that God exists, and yet I can still wonder, quite intelligibly, whether it is true." (Opposing Arguments in Philosophy, p.124)
In other words, presuppositionalists treat a non-tautological synthetic existential claim (i.e., 'God exists' or 'the Bible is true') as primitive or self-evident. It is generally accepted, in logic, that only universal claims (all x are y) and tautological claims (some p is p) can be primitive.
Dr. Jonathan McLatchie made a similar point: "[T]his argument equivocates between two sorts of presuppositions. Consider the statement that “all bachelors are unmarried.” This is an analytic statement that is true by definition. One does not need to go out and investigate whether or not it is true that all bachelors are unmarried. It is true by virtue of what we mean by “bachelor” and what we mean by “unmarried.” Likewise, the laws of logic, that is, the law of non-contradiction, the law of identity, and the law of the excluded middle are true by definition. It is true by definition that “a” cannot be “non-a” in the same sense at the same time. Likewise, mathematical propositions such as the statement that “2+2 = 4” are true by definition, by virtue simply of what we mean by the constituent terms “2”, “+”, “=”, and “4”. However, statements that have actual content are not true by definition. For example, consider the statement that “all bachelors are unhappy.” That might be true, but it also might be false. That is to say, it is a contingent statement. We cannot find out the answer simply by analysis of the constituent terms. It is not an analytic statement. To discover whether it is true or false, we need to gather evidence. The statement that God exists and has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ and communicated to mankind through the Bible is not a statement that is analytically true. It is a statement that is closer in nature to the statement that “all bachelors are unhappy” than to the statement that “all bachelors are unmarried.” The Bible, therefore, cannot simply be presupposed or asserted to be true..." (Book Review: The Anatomy of Deconversion, by John Marriott)
Philosopher Norman Kretzmann also presented interesting objections: "I shouldn't end without at least mentioning some of the differences between MP ['mystical perceptual practice'] and SP ['sense-perceptual practice'] that raise further problems when Alston turns to consider directly the reliability of MP and the justification of mystical beliefs within MP. ... For instance, where SP presents a universal, constant abundance of perceptual inputs, MP’s inputs seem relatively rare, scattered, intermittent, and few; where SP’s outputs exhibit consistency across cultural divisions, MP’s don’t. ... But perhaps the most salient difference from the standpoint of practical rationality – as we have seen that concept employed in this investigation – is the fact that, while we cannot rationally reject or suspend judgement on most sense-perceptual experience, even devout theists often conscientiously reject or suspend judgement on putative mystical perceptions. And since it is the absence of ‘alternatives that commend themselves to reflection as superior’ that Alston offers as the linchpin of the practical rationality of acting as if SP is reliable, it looks as if he cannot argue along the same line for the practical rationality of acting as if MP is reliable." (St Teresa, William Alston, and the Broadminded Atheist, p.90)
A more serious objection is the fact that people from different religions claim that their (perceptual and/or recognitional) religious/mystical experiences show their sacred books to be self-evident. The problem is that these books contradict each other. Philosopher Hossein Houshmand observed:
“John Hick [argued:] 'There is however an obvious challenge to this in the fact that the same epistemological principle establishes the rationality of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists in holding beliefs that are incompatible with the Christian belief-system. Belief in the reality of Allah, Vishnu, Shiva, and of the non-personal Brahman, Dharmakaya, Tao, seem to be as experientially well based as belief in the reality of the Holy Trinity.'
Alston assumed that there is only one ‘true religion’, so that the problematical question is, which of the competing religious belief-systems is the true one? It arises two objections: First, [John] Hick writes: ‘This widespread assumption is fatal to Alston’s thesis that it is rational to base beliefs on religious experience. For if only one of the many belief-systems based upon religious experience can be true, it follows that religious experience generally produces false beliefs, and that it is thus a generally unreliable basis for belief-formation. This is a reversal of the principle, for which Alston has argued so persuasively, that religious experience constitutes as legitimate a ground for belief-formation as does sense experience.’
And the second, Hick argues ‘whilst it is possible that the doxastic practice of one’s own community constitutes the sole exception to a general rule, the claim that this is so can only appear arbitrary and unjustified unless it is supported by good arguments.’
Alston admits the absence of neutral grounds for preferring the Christian worldview as only a ‘worst case scenario.’ A more desirable scenario would be one in which there are compelling metaphysical arguments for theism and in which in addition ‘historical evidence give much stronger support to the claims of Christianity than to those of its theistic rivals, [namely,] Judaism and Islam.’
[Hick] argues, based on Alston’s only-one-true-religion assumption, [that] the arguments and evidence establishing the truth of Christian beliefs would thereby establish the falsity of the beliefs of other religions that [are] incompatible with Christian beliefs. Hick writes: 'And yet religious experience within the different traditions has produced these incompatible beliefs. It thus follows as directly from Alston’s best case scenario as from his worst case scenario that religious experience is not generally a reliable ground for belief. On the contrary, it follows equally inescapably from either scenario that religious experience generally produces false beliefs, with Christian experience claiming to stand out as the sole exception.’ Thus, the challenge of religious diversity to Alston's experience-based apologetics is clearly acute.” (A Reading in Religious Epistemology, pp. 72-74)
Philosopher Evan Fales complemented: “It is not just that there is enormous variety—it is that the contents of the various experiences and associated revelations often come into apparent conflict—and that the experiences themselves often appear to generate subjective certainty that the revelations are true. On the face of it, however, these revelations cannot all be true, as they are inconsistent. Qailertetang is venerated by the traditional Inuit, for whom Yahweh may at best be alien and perhaps nonexistent (Inuit lack a supreme deity); conversely, Hildegard von Bingen, the twelfth-century German Christian mystic, would surely have disavowed the allegiance-worthiness of Qailertetang. Such conflicts both can and do arise intramurally as well: witness the fierce debates over theological doctrine (often with appeals to divine illumination) between and within the various Christian denominations. On the face of it, we can’t all be right.” (Opposing Arguments in Philosophy, p.186)
A modified and catholic form of divine illumination is the so called Papal infallibility which holds that “the pope when appealing to his highest authority is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine ... whereby the Pope, as 'head of the college of bishops,' enjoys papal infallibility.” (Papal infallibility) It is ironic that presuppositionalists – who are mostly Calvinists and thus strongly disagree with the Catholic doctrine – also claim to receive infallible knowledge from God. They can't both be right. Obviously both will say they are right and others are wrong because they received infallible knowledge from God. But this simply casts doubt on the whole idea of infallibility. Of course, the Pope and the Calvinist could say we shouldn't rely on reason but rather on revelation, so this apparent inconsistency should be ignored because revelation says so. However, while they could say that, every critical and intelligent person would either doubt their honesty or sanity.
Philosopher Ali Hasan mentioned a possible rebuttal: “At this point, one might object: If the problem of disagreement is a genuine problem, doesn’t it affect all sorts of beliefs, including ordinary and scientific beliefs, and so result in skepticism? … Surely it is possible to rationally disagree with someone! … So, we don’t, and shouldn’t, always budge in the face of disagreement – at least not significantly.” (Opposing Arguments in Philosophy, p.126)
Counter-apologist Emerson Green replied to this objection as follows: "The difference between religious disagreement with respect to divine experience and other disagreements, such as scientific and political disagreements, is the means by which these beliefs are formed. Plantinga's claim of a sensus divinitatis is roughly that we "see" God like we see a tree or feel a pain. We don't arrive at political beliefs or scientific models of the world in this way. Plantinga claims that he directly experiences the reality of God, much like we perceive the external world or directly attend to our feelings and experiences. This is not how beliefs about abortion or scientific models are formed. Once we appreciate the complicated process by which these beliefs are formed, disagreement is understandable. I use a metaphor involving trees [to] highlight some of these differences. Believers supposedly have an extra sense, like sight, yet there is profound disagreement. How many people can look at the tree outside my window and have serious disagreements about it? Everyone would agree it was green, had many branches, etc. But imagine if everyone, supposedly gifted with the same sensory organ, couldn't agree on key features of the tree, like it's color or whether it had any branches. Now imagine some didn't even believe the tree existed! Again, it seems implausible to claim that we have a sense experience of God if there can be disagreement of this sort, since it doesn't seem to be a feature of other sensory experiences." (Personal Correspondence)
God is supposed to be perceived/directly experienced like one experiences a tree. Political and scientific beliefs, on the other hand, are not directly experienced. Instead, we arrive at them by means of complex (and therefore more prone to error) inferences which, not only depend on axiomatic rules of thought and morality, but also on non-basic knowledge and previous beliefs. It is easy to disagree about the latter, but much harder to disagree about the former (e.g., that we are looking at a tree 3 feet in front of us.).
This points to a naturalistic explanation of these experiences. Philosopher C. M. Lorkowski gave a nice explanation that accounts for ordinary cases (e.g., in which the person has no brain disease) of mystical experiences:
"There is always a commonly experienced reasonable explanation for private religious experiences – the fact that the mind can deceive itself via hallucination. ... Though mental health disorders can still explain religious experiences coming from such deliberate methods, there exists another type of natural explanations for them. A hypothesis that has gained much traction is that deep prayer and meditation can place one in a highly suggestible, quasi-hypnotic state in which one can, in essence, self-hypnotize without being aware of it, fabricating an invented experience without realizing it. Self-hypnosis in such circumstances has been observed and documented. As such, considerations become similar to the case of hallucinations above. Self-hypnosis becomes a commonly experienced and reasonable explanation. Therefore, the defender of the religious experience has an obligation to eliminate this natural account before positing the experience as genuinely supernatural. But as was the case with various causes of hallucinations, it is not clear how an explanation of this sort could be eliminated with any reasonable degree of certainty." (Atheism Considered, pp. 158, 159-160)
Philosopher Nicholas Everitt went further and argued these naturalistic explanations are even more plausible philosophically than spiritualist ones:
“There is available a naturalistic explanation of the occurrence of religious experience (minimally construed), and this explanation is superior to a theistic explanation in two related respects. First, it invokes only psychological dispositions for which there is a great deal of independent evidence. Second, it provides a much simpler explanation than the theistic explanation. It does not invoke any new entities or processes or mechanisms, but relies solely on ones which we already accept. The theistic account, by contrast, postulates a unique and completely unprecedented sort of being, with an amazing range of properties and powers... and about whom theists often say that he is to a greater or lesser degree unknowable.” (On the Non-Existence of God, p.171)
I'll wrap it up with a nice quote by A. E. Wright criticizing presuppositionalists:
"Presuppositionalists... work very hard to use their questions to reduce other people's worldviews to confusion and absurdity. As someone who deeply values any effort that illuminates the fraudulence of certainty, I can find value here. Many people have not truly thought rigorously about the underpinnings and implications of their positions, and when a pugnacious presuppositionalist relentlessly hurls questions like "But how do you know that this is true?", "How can you trust your senses?", "How can you explain the uniformity of the universe?", and so on, even sensible people can realize how little they actually know. This has value. The problem, however, is that unlike the noble elenchus of Socrates, the litany of presuppositionalist questions does not begin from a place of humble ignorance in order to shed light on the ignorance of others; it begins from a place of boastful metaphysical certainty and attempts to employ that certainty as a tool against the justified uncertainty of the open-minded. I cannot praise the presuppositionalists for their attempts to reveal ignorance when they refuse to see it in themselves."