Presupposing Idealism (Part 2 of 2)

This post is a continuation of "Presupposing Idealism (Part 1 of 2)"

The presuppositionalist cannot be a realist for the fact that he demands a mode of knowing that is simply not possible on realism. He demands the starting point of an idea or belief. But ideas are not things. He must also account for connecting thought to reality, which is not possible when thought and reality are walled off from each other. 

If the presuppositionalist started from things and not ideas/beliefs, then his view would not get off the ground. Because to start from things would be to acknowledge that we come to know things through the senses, that we know truth by correspondence to reality, that we can know God through His effects, and that we know the Bible is true because we first know what truth is, what language means, and so forth. For example, how can we understand the Bible if we do not first know language or understand concepts derived from the apprehension of being as it is? So, we cannot truly start with presupposing the Bible because such a thing cannot in principle be done. The logical and sequential order of man’s natural mode of knowing is reversed on the presuppositionalist view. Per Van Til:

"We should accept the Scripture testimony about itself. If we did anything else we would not be accepting Scripture as absolute. The only alternative then to bringing in a God who testifies of himself and upon whose testimony we are wholly dependent, is not to bringing in God at all. And not to bring in God at all spells nothing but utter ruin for knowledge" A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 202

One accepting what Van Til says here, and in other places, cannot be a realist. The mode of knowledge posited by Van Til can only be understood within an idealist framework. 

When the Christian claims that the Bible is true, we are claiming that the Bible corresponds to reality. We are claiming that what the Bible reports about events is true, what it tells us about God is true, and all the rest. Yet, how can we know something is true if the mode of human knowing is circumvented? This is precisely what the presuppositionalist is asking. He is essentially saying that the way we normally know things does not apply to the Bible or God. So, taking our que from the presuppositionalist, should the unbeliever suspect that his normal way of knowing things is delivering falsehood? It seems so. Yet, if this is the case, then why should he trust the normal way he is knowing the things that the presuppositionalist is telling him about God and the Bible?! Throwing shade at the unbelievers’ knowing faculties undermines the entire conversation. Further, arguing that a person’s knowing faculties are mixed with error is an argument for skepticism. And the only fertile ground for skepticism is in idealism. Moreover, one would be arguing from an epistemic elitism; the presuppositionalist holds that only they have proper knowing faculties to adjudicate truth and falsehood. This would then amount to an a priori denial of anything the opposing person says in disagreement.

What the presuppositionalist must also avoid is claiming that, once the Bible is presupposed as true, the truth of it will then be evident. This self-defeating rationale is employed in other religions (such as LDS). Further, I do not see any limit to the potential post-hoc rationalization or confirmation bias problems that can arise if it is asked that the Bible be presupposed as true in order to establish its truth.

Is the Bible true for the believer and unbeliever? Certainly, we want to say that it is. Thus, we must say that it is objectively true, and that the unbeliever may withhold assent or try to undermine its truth. In any event, there are propositions within the Bible which we assert correspond to mind-independent reality. And if we desire to maintain this correspondence, we cannot demand a bifurcated way of knowing things. So, do we know the Bible because the ideas of it are implanted in us? Or, do we know the Bible because we learn language, understand truth, then apprehend that the Bible is not contradicting itself, reports historical events, etc.? I think the latter is much more plausible.

What about God simply giving us knowledge of things? Surely, He could circumvent the natural knowing process and grant us knowledge of Himself directly (beaming it into our mind) or of the Scriptures. I would not necessarily disagree but would qualify my response, lest we saw off the branch upon which we are sitting. The only way we can be sure that God is revealing things to us is by having a reality by which we can understand such revelation. If God tells Noah to build an ark, Noah knows what an ark is, what rain is, what a flood is, and so forth. Noah understands and grasps language and meaning. And Noah understood this before God spoke to Him. God communicates to us in accordance with the type of beings we are. It would go against the nature of God to usurp how He created man and would go against His nature to think that He would create us to understand things in a certain way and then constantly override that when He needed to especially reveal something to us (whether an Old Testament patriarch or New Testament believer). I think God communicates to us in accordance with our nature. If God shows the Hebrew special instructions for metalworking within the Tabernacle, then this is understood as a human understand things. This is, of course, one of the reasons why the Bible is written in human language, for us to learn, pass along, teach from, and to treasure. Does the Holy Spirit tell us what the passages mean? Or does He guide us in our understanding, drawing is closer to the Lord and His Word? I think our sanctification is described in the Bible as a cooperative effort, and it is for our benefit that we become obedient. This does not at all diminish the spiritual life of the believer but makes it intelligible and veridical.

I suspect a major reason why the presuppositionalist must posit God on pain of never getting to God is because his idealism forbids him from knowing things in themselves. Baked into his philosophical anthropology is a tacit perceptual subjectivism. Without God as the transcendental, there be only nihilistic relativism because things cannot ultimately be known as they are. Thus, Christian proofs for God, as famously attacked by Kant, are vulnerable because the reasoning gap of effect to cause cannot be bridged. Positing God at the outset, and the Christian worldview as a transcendental framework, solves this problem. Again from Van Til:

That is, we must seek to determine what presuppositions are necessary to any object of knowledge in order that it may be intelligible to us. It is not as though we already know some facts and laws to begin with, irrespective of the existence of God, in order then to reason from such a beginning to further conclusions. It is certainly true that if God has any significance for any object of knowledge at all, the relation of God to that object of knowledge must be taken into consideration from the outset. It is this fact that the transcendental method seeks to recognize. - A Survey of Christian Epistemology p.201

It is clear how the idealist lays down his method before exploration as if he knows what he will encounter and how he will react and respond before he sets out. The backwardness of this approach is evident of a type of “taxi-cab” fallacy; one arbitrary dismisses how he arrived at his present location. As Gilson accurately states, the idealist puts forth a method as a precondition for philosophy instead of finding method in his philosophy (as the realist does). The idealist starting point “has neither the evidence of an axiom nor the value of a principle” (Gilson, Methodical Realism, p.85). Further, there are no compelling reasons to accept the major problems that Descartes, Kant, or others in the modern era, were trying to solve. The problems begetting idealism and the transcendental are demonstrable facades. And once we see these problems for what they are, the need for the transcendental method – and all of its attending problems - fades away.

I think the presuppositionalist could resort to saying, “God must regenerate you, then you will know the truth.” But how does the presuppositionalist know that he has been regenerated to know the truth? He would just be appealing to the Scriptures to establish the truth he has already presupposed as true. Or, how does he avoid the question of a demon or evil spirit giving him a false idea of regeneration? The presuppositionalist might also reply that only a regenerated person can understand the truth of the Scriptures and God, the unbeliever cannot. The Bible does say the things of God are foolishness to the impenitent man, but this does not mean the unbeliever cannot understand and apprehend what is being told to him; he simply rejects it as false based on myriad (futile, I think) grounds. And, of course, I agree that the unbeliever’s view is irrational. But, again, the way we establish the rationality of our view is of the utmost importance. The believer may understand the truths of the Scriptures in a much deeper, and entirely distinct way than the unbeliever. Think of an orphan reading a letter from what he took to be another person’s father, and then later discovering through various means that he was actually reading a letter from his own father. The letter would mean much more on the second reading.

Moving away from idealism is important for Christians. Upholding the divide between object and subject, whether explicitly or implicitly, brings intractable problems for the Christian worldview. We must maintain that what man knows are things. Thus, the point of departure and proper starting point for philosophy is being. There is nothing to know if there are not things. Getting this out of order led to the problems that the presuppositionalist sees as highly relevant. These problems need not have arisen in the first place, so continuing to give them life and constructing philosophical and apologetic systems around them represents time that could be better spent elsewhere.

I realize the presuppositional question and method is closely tied to Reformed Theology. And those strongly committed to that tradition will bristle at the points raised above. Still, we should seek a unified worldview and biblical prolegomena. Inconsistency must be rooted out where we find it.

Presupposing Idealism (Part 1 of 2)

Taking epistemology as the point of departure is fraught with insufferable difficulty. Yet, this is the lamentable method used in a great deal of modern philosophy.  We take knowledge, or even the idea of our own existence, and then ask questions and analyze it. How did I come to have the thought, idea, perception, etc. that is before me right now? What is the logical relation between the ideas I have, the propositions I take as true, etc.? Only once I establish that I know can I then explore that which I know. Without a foundation of knowledge, I cannot speak about anything. If I posit something as existing, someone will ask me how I know about it. And if I cannot provide a good answer, then I might as well not even talk about it. Ontology is subordinated to epistemology. This is particularly evident in the Christian presuppositional tradition.

One problem I see with the presuppositional approach is that it is fundamentally idealist. In this post, I will try to explain what I mean by this and why it is an issue. Note, I am not making a critique of presuppositional apologetics per se. A great deal of ink has already been spilled on that. There are underlying philosophical commitments that are prior, and, I think, more interesting than strictly apologetic approach. I do not have a particular brand of presuppositionalism in mind. Rather, what lies within my sights is a consistent philosophical theme in Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame, Oliphint, and others in this tradition, as well as those they have either directly or indirectly influenced. I also see presuppositionalism evident in preaching and pulpit teaching in many evangelical churches, so I aim to address this incipience also.

If we know anything, an important thing to ask is what man knows. Here we have two choices; does he know ideas/beliefs (thought) or things? If we say ideas (or beliefs), then our outlook changes quite a bit. For one thing, to say we know ideas immediately severs any possible physical world from the mind. Such a position naturally radiates from perceptual subjectivism. On this view, the mind is cut-off or mediated from the physical world (if the world is even held to exist). A dimly lit exit sign directs us to a dubious abductive labyrinth. Escape has been attempted by the greatest minds in modern philosophy to no avail because there is no way out. On the other hand, we can say man knows things. And if man knows things, he must know them as they really are. This can only occur if objects are antecedent to the knowing subject, impinging upon the subject’s senses. Such would be man’s natural mode of knowing, the way he comes to know things in his physical, temporal state.

Something of great importance follows if man knows reality (things). His mode of knowing proceeds from object to subject, from sensation to perception to abstraction to intellection. As a rational being, this process is natural; it belongs to his very essence. It is just what man does qua man. There is something outside of man by which man comes to know himself. I am, therefore I think versus I think, therefore I am. It is the Cogito of Descartes in reverse. If the way we know reality is through the process as outlined above, then the yardstick for truth is reality (being). To speak truly is to say that which is. There is a correspondence to reality, where a formal identity comes to exist between the knower and object known. I do not aim to fully defend direct realism here, but merely to highly its differences with idealism and the attending consequences of each. Even if an extended defense of my account of realism fails, the rendering and critique of idealism would remain.

Where does the presuppositionalist land? As I said above, I think he cannot help but land in idealism. Though, it would certainly be problematic to affirm idealism outright. It should be further noted that, by idealism, I do not mean anything other than the basic view that what man knows are beliefs and ideas. For example, holding that knowledge is justified true belief is fundamentally idealist. By idealism, I mean any view that affirms perceptual subjectivism. And by idealism, I mean one that would hold the only possible starting point for knowing reality is the thoughts/ideas/beliefs we have.

The modern/critical problem of Descartes begat idealism, cutting the mind off from things in pursuit of an indubitable foundation. The offspring of idealism is the mind/body problem, which in turn yields the substance dualism/materialism dilemma. (We might add panpsychism in there as a third option, but I think that quickly lands in idealism). Both the substance dualist and materialist options are bitter pills, viz. the interaction problem and the reductionist problem. The mind/body problem is also biblically troubling. Substance dualism, in the Cartesian or Platonic sense, strains the bounds of exegetical credulity. Does the Bible really teach that man is two distinct substances? On the other side, materialism eviscerates the biblical text entirely.

The presuppositionalist tells us that, unless we presuppose the triune God of the Bible (and the truth of the Scriptures), nothing could in principle ultimately make sense. We would contradict ourselves somewhere, probably very soon in the discussion. Any time we use logic, reason, math, etc. we are, in a very real way, implicitly affirming Christian theism. Thus, to deny God is to deny any basis by which we might make such a denial. The non-Christian must borrow from the Christian worldview to argue against the Christian. The Christian framework is the only coherent means of understanding and explaining things.

Given his fundamental position, I contend that the presuppositionalist cannot be a realist. He cannot be a realist because he takes epistemology as his point of departure, thus beginning with knowledge and not things. The presuppositionalist cannot be a realist because realism would open up the possibility of knowing God through the things He has made. On realism, man would know things, apprehend causes, and would reason from effect to cause. In short, with realism comes natural theology. And natural theology is what the presuppositionalist will deny.

A major question that arises is how the presuppositionalist knows about the triune God of the Bible. More importantly, how does he think that the pagan knows about God (Romans 1:18-20). It could only be from either (a) having the idea or belief in God or (b) based on conclusions drawn from interaction with the world. The presuppositionalist can opt for (a), holding that God implanted knowledge of Himself in all men. Perhaps the sensus divinatatus per John Calvin is in view. There are a few issues here. First, this does not necessarily seem like the triune God of Scripture. For if it were, the divinely implanted idea of God manifests quite differently throughout observed cultures in the world. The presuppositionalist will immediately revert that sinful man suppresses true knowledge of God. But then we have still not accounted for that true knowledge in the first place. How does the presuppositional (or covenantal) understand truth =? They might respond that God gives the idea, and then we interact with reality to calibrate the idea (prior to suppressing it). But this is the exact opposite process of how we come to know things unless we think that Plato’s theory of reminisce, or something like it, is true.

Even within an idealist context, it would be bizarre to claim that knowledge starts with an idea and then we reverse engineer or justify it via some investigatory process of prior ideas. A reverse building process, as it were. Do we always start with a complex idea and then investigate how we came to that via simpler ideas? Or do we move from the simple to the complex? Further, why would the way of having the idea of God be different than other ideas? Is knowledge of God innate? If so, what other innate knowledge might we have, and how do we distinguish? I cannot see any non-special pleading answers to these questions that can escape idealism. Starting with an idea will always result in capitulating to a coherence version of truth or making an unjustified leap to the physical world.  

The presuppositionalist holds that without first positing Christianity, the world cannot ultimately make sense. The contention that the universe is only intelligible because of God is true, but the method by which we make this assertion makes all the difference. I remain with the question of where the notion of God is coming from? And the presuppositionalist certainly holds that man has knowledge of God and truth. Here is Oliphint’s position, via a summary from his tenets in Covenantal Apologetics “All people know the true God, and that knowledge entails covenantal obligations…Those who are and remain in Adam suppress the truth that they know.”

Given that man does know God and about Him, can the presuppositionalist maintain (b) per above? He cannot if he wishes to remain consistent. Such a move would undermine the entire project. However, this is what I think the presuppositionalist does. He concludes God exists by his natural mode of knowing (reasoning from effect to cause). Once arriving at that conclusion, he then claims the only reason he was able to reason in the first place is because of the conclusions he made based upon use of his reason (God). The presuppositionalist ignores the fact that he did not (nor could not) actually start with the existence of the God of the Bible. Yet he places this demand upon others. It is a highly unreasonable demand, and one that is completely unnecessary. 

To be continued...