Van Til-Bahnsen VS Aristotle-Aquinas

[billson555]

Hello,

I realize this question may have been asked on here before, in part or whole, but here is what’s on my mind…

I’ve just started to read Dr. Greg Bahnsen’s “Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended”. For those who don’t know, Dr. Greg Bahnsen was one of the greatest proponents of the presuppositional apologetics espoused by Cornelius Van-Til. This sort of apologetics is based on the premise that the Christian worldview is the only worldview that completely holds up to reality.

Now, I’ve only just started, so it would be great if anybody who has read the whole book can comment. But so far Bahnsen’s thesis seems like a viscous circular argument that he stresses is not illogical but rather is necessary. The reason being that the Christian worldview ultimately hangs on God, which must be the uncaused cause; He is His own reason.

However, while it seems like Aristotelian metaphysics and Thomistic thinking lead one to this conclusion from logic and nature, Bahnsen seems to be arguing that a Christian must start with (presuppose) Scripture as the basis of all reason; the Scriptures contain the revelation from God, which is the only way to truly know ANYTHING.

I’m probably doing a poor job of explaining it, but I’m curious what others have to say about this. The main reason I’m bringing this up is part of an ongoing research volley I’ve had between Reformed Theology and Catholicism. The Reformed tradition stresses so highly the sovereignty and Authority of God, and this piety seems to give some sort of credit to Bahnsens thesis. One main point he’s stated thus far is along the lines of “That God had to reveal himself divinely to man shows man is not capable of reasoning his way to God. Thus we must start with Gods revelation (Scripture) in apologetics and our worldview in total.”

This just seems a bit counter to Thomism/Catholicism, which seems to be built on the scholastic idea that Scripture and the world must be examined un-biased, and God can be found from there. But for Bahnsen, Scripture itself is a self-referential starting axiom, because it is the revelation from God.

Thoughts, criticisms, tangents. All welcome. Thank you.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

I’ll admit that this is the first time I’ve heard of Presuppositional Apologetics - my first thought was “that doesn’t sound very Catholic,” then I googled it and realized that the Dr. Bahnsen you mention was Calvinist. There are things he says which I agree with, but after some brief reading I think he kind of goes overboard on the Total Depravity thing. Which I guess isn’t a surprising thing for a Catholic to say about a Calvinist. But in any case:

To me, the insistence on saying that Scripture must be presupposed doesn’t seem merely to be circular, but rather to be self contradictory. So far as I can tell, the statement “Christianity is the only consistent worldview” already requires that every single statement within Christianity is equivalent to every other segment. (Because if not, then simply find some statement within Christianity that do not imply the rest of it. Call it A. Then the worldview that says “A is true, everything that A implies is also true, and I have no other knowledge at this time” is consistent, but isn’t full Christianity. It doesn’t have the full picture, but what it does have is true and doesn’t contradict itself.)

So then, if Christianity is the only consistent worldview, or the only worldview that matches reality, then all statements within Christianity are equivalent. But if this is true, then there is no need to presuppose any particular one of them - presupposing any of them at all will do, since logic will then lead to all the others. So, for example, presupposing that the world is generally sensible, and that things exist, would be enough. Which is exactly the approach that, from what I’ve read, these people argue against.

Now (sticking within Presuppositionalism, at least as I understand it) one could say that, well, logically assuming anything thing within Christianity is in fact enough, but because of human falleness, a human may make an error and arrive at the wrong place if he doesn’t presuppose scripture. But this doesn’t help, as many people presuppose scripture and arrive at the wrong place (as seen by the fact that they arrive at different places, at most one of which can be right). Further, every single one of these places can be arrived at without presupposing scripture - since scripture has been arrived without presupposing itself, so presupposing scripture is thus neither necessary nor sufficient for arriving at the truth.

I do think he is right in saying that the universe is only intelligible in a Christian framework. Christ is the Word, the Logos, and all truth, all understanding is in Him. Further, it is true that humans can be illogical, and thus accept part of this framework and reject others, and that in so doing, they are in some sense suppressing (willfully or not) part of revelation. In this way, the idea that all men are working within differently damaged or incomplete versions of the Christian framework (something google tells me Presuppositionalists believe.) is, I think, true.

But this actually supports the standard approach of finding common ground, as well as of finding contradictions in the framework the other is using. Because if I can find common ground with someone, and if I am Christian, then I have found a part of Christianity that they accept. And if, as is the consequence of saying that Christianity is the only consistent worldview, all statements within Christianity imply all other statements (something, by the way, I am not committing one way or the other on at the moment), then since you have just found a piece of Christianity that they accept, then you can logically demonstrate from that single piece why they should accept the whole thing.

Which doesn’t require presupposing anything in particular, much less something so specific as Scripture. So I think that entire position is self defeating. (Also note that I am not sure exactly where I stand on such statements as “every part of Christianity implies every other part,” but was using them because they are consequences this sort of thing.)

 

[tdgesq]

Classical Apologetics written by R.C. Sproul gives an absolutely crushing rejoinder to Van-Tillian presuppositional apologetics. I have studied Van Til and Bahnsen extensively. The problem they ultimately have is that they use the same presuppositions the rest of us do in order to have any knowledge at all. The validity of the laws of logic must be presupposed. The reliability of the senses to give us accurate empirical information is presupposed.

One can’t even read the Bible, much less claim that it is the word of God, without first presupposing those fundamental things that make knowledge possible in the first place. We can and do have knowledge without the need to presuppose anything about the Bible. There are other major problems with the transcendental argument for the existence of God.

 

[billson555]

tdgesg - I agree, given what little I’ve read so far.

Do you agree that it seems like a circular argument? The only caveat Bahnsen seems to provide is that the nature of Scripture (it being God’s revelation to man) makes it valid to be a self-referential pre-supposition.

But this just seems to be akin to saying “my opinion is about something SO important, you HAVE to accept it.” From this angle, starting from an un-biased, realism point of view is out o the question, and Bahnsen seems to state this as such rather bluntly.

But given that situation, only somebody who seemingly believed in Scripture from the get-go would be “won over” in the argument. Given the doctrine of election with regards to Calvinism, this isn’t surprising.

 

[tdgesq]

Do you agree that it seems like a circular argument? The only caveat Bahnsen seems to provide is that the nature of Scripture (it being God’s revelation to man) makes it valid to be a self-referential pre-supposition.

Yes, he admits that the argument is circular. His response to that allegation is: so what? He argues that all epistemic presuppositions are ultimately question begging. The interesting thing is that he does in fact have justifications for his position regarding Scripture as God’s revelation, some explicit and some implicit. Bahnsen argues, as you noted, that his claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of God is self-authenticating.

Regardless of what he means by “self-authenticating,” it is clearly an explicit epistemic justification for Scripture as God’s revelation. The interesting thing here though is that he can’t even utter the terms “self-authenticating” or “God’s revelation” without implicitly presupposing laws of thought, language and the reliability of sensory experience. He’s using the same epistemic presuppositions for knowledge as all of the rest of us in order to justify his assertion about God and Scripture. It isn’t really a presupposition at all.

But this just seems to be akin to saying “my opinion is about something SO important, you HAVE to accept it.” From this angle, starting from an un-biased, realism point of view is out o the question, and Bahnsen seems to state this as such rather bluntly.

It does seem that way, but when Bahnsen and Rushdooney really get pressed, they start giving justifications for their presuppositional method that are based in traditional realism. If you ever get a chance to study the Transcendental Argument (the impossibility of the contrary) it really becomes a matter of comparing worldviews; and then seeing whose worldview meets the standards of logical coherence. But that really isn’t any different from other traditional apologetical methods, and it still relies on the metaphysic of the realist.

But given that situation, only somebody who seemingly believed in Scripture from the get-go would be “won over” in the argument. Given the doctrine of election with regards to Calvinism, this isn’t surprising.

It’s an attractive approach in the sense that it does teach you to question what are generally given presuppositions of knowledge. This can be a very exciting discovery to young Christians. It’s a tool that can easily confuse non-theists. However, I’ve seen Calvinists leave their church once they discover that presuppositionalists rely on the same foundations of knowledge that atheists do. TULIP just makes things worse, because some of these guys are convinced (will even tell you) that God has given them special knowledge as a regenerate that let’s them know just how right they are.

 

[Marty_E]

However, while it seems like Aristotelian metaphysics and Thomistic thinking lead one to this conclusion from logic and nature, Bahnsen seems to be arguing that a Christian must start with (presuppose) Scripture as the basis of all reason; the Scriptures contain the revelation from God, which is the only way to truly know ANYTHING.

Without opening the various tangents that lead from it, the basic proposition is that there are two sources of knowledge: natural and supernatural.

The natural sources are open to everyone, as the Greeks well illustrated, and by observation and right reason a man can find the law written in his heart and deduce a goodly portion of the Natural Law.

However, there are things which can only be known from revelation. If we assume there is a God, and we believe that He wishes us good, it is reasonable to conclude that He will assist us in reaching Him and living in accordance with his will.

Which leads to Scriptures. To which a Catholic would add Tradition.

Greg L. Bahnsen was a Calvinist and a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

The apparent circularity is observed when you run this past a non-believer, who will immediately point out that it assumes there is a God, it assumes that He wishes us good, and so on and so forth.

.

 

[thenobes]

Hi MartyE

Very interesting discussion. I have some questions. Otherwise I will be
:coffeeread:

Without opening the various tangents that lead from it, the basic proposition is that there are two sources of knowledge: natural and supernatural.

The natural sources are open to everyone, as the Greeks well illustrated, and by observation and right reason a man can find the law written in his heart and deduce a goodly portion of the Natural Law.

However, there are things which can only be known from revelation. If we assume there is a God, and we believe that He wishes us good, it is reasonable to conclude that He will assist us in reaching Him and living in accordance with his will.

Which leads to Scriptures. To which a Catholic would add Tradition.

Wouldn’t the existence of conscience even precede scriptures as a signaling to us that there is a God? Wouldn’t that be a source of revelation (of a sort)? Wouldn’t this be something Aquinas would point to? Doesn’t Paul support this in Romans? Or is this impossible to know without reading Romans?

Does Bahnsen have anything to say about conscience?

Greg L. Bahnsen was a Calvinist and a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

The apparent circularity is observed when you run this past a non-believer, who will immediately point out that it assumes there is a God, it assumes that He wishes us good, and so on and so forth.

.

peace
steve

 

[Marty_E]

Wouldn’t the existence of conscience even precede scriptures as a signaling to us that there is a God? Wouldn’t that be a source of revelation (of a sort)? Wouldn’t this be something Aquinas would point to? Doesn’t Paul support this in Romans? Or is this impossible to know without reading Romans?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Aristotle noted it.

Paul speaks of the law written in the hearts of the Gentiles.

The Declaration of Independence speaks of “these truths to be self-evident”.

It is always interesting to listen to abortion and same sex marriage advocates claiming there is no Natural Law. One wonders what reality they live in.

.

 

[Bahman]

Hello,

I realize this question may have been asked on here before, in part or whole, but here is what’s on my mind…

I’ve just started to read Dr. Greg Bahnsen’s “Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended”. For those who don’t know, Dr. Greg Bahnsen was one of the greatest proponents of the presuppositional apologetics espoused by Cornelius Van-Til. This sort of apologetics is based on the premise that the Christian worldview is the only worldview that completely holds up to reality.

Now, I’ve only just started, so it would be great if anybody who has read the whole book can comment. But so far Bahnsen’s thesis seems like a viscous circular argument that he stresses is not illogical but rather is necessary. The reason being that the Christian worldview ultimately hangs on God, which must be the uncaused cause; He is His own reason.

However, while it seems like Aristotelian metaphysics and Thomistic thinking lead one to this conclusion from logic and nature, Bahnsen seems to be arguing that a Christian must start with (presuppose) Scripture as the basis of all reason; the Scriptures contain the revelation from God, which is the only way to truly know ANYTHING.

I’m probably doing a poor job of explaining it, but I’m curious what others have to say about this. The main reason I’m bringing this up is part of an ongoing research volley I’ve had between Reformed Theology and Catholicism. The Reformed tradition stresses so highly the sovereignty and Authority of God, and this piety seems to give some sort of credit to Bahnsens thesis. One main point he’s stated thus far is along the lines of “That God had to reveal himself divinely to man shows man is not capable of reasoning his way to God. Thus we must start with Gods revelation (Scripture) in apologetics and our worldview in total.”

This just seems a bit counter to Thomism/Catholicism, which seems to be built on the scholastic idea that Scripture and the world must be examined un-biased, and God can be found from there. But for Bahnsen, Scripture itself is a self-referential starting axiom, because it is the revelation from God.

Thoughts, criticisms, tangents. All welcome. Thank you.

Truth is state of belief on something, our states of beliefs however is not absolutely true. Belief is state of trust on something which doesn’t have any value if it cannot be judged un-biased. Hence, the absolute truth so called God, can only be conceived through un-biased judgment of our thoughts.