PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETICS

[steven84]

Presuppositional apologetics is relatively new in my vocabulary. I never really understood how it worked but after watching this clip I saw just how effective it could be.

I then got to thinking, why doesn't someone like William Lane Craig implement this style of apologetic?

Does anyone know of any mainstream apologist using this technique?
What are the "ins" and "outs" to this argument? Are there any weaknesses in it or does it really work as well as things seemed to turn out in the clip?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA-aZVu2v0s

[Zzyzx]

.

Presuppositions are acceptable and even necessary, but when we call them 'truths' and parade them around as if from 'Gods' they become divisive and potentially dangerous for everyone.

I agree -- and add that identifying "presuppositions" (assumptions) as TRUTH ("from god") is dishonest.

[Slopeshoulder]

I've been thinking a bit every day about presuppositional apologetics, ever since theopoesis was kind enough to tell me about it recently. And while it is well known that I take post-modernity seriously, I cannot get past the stumbling block that it is circular.

I acknowledge that it can support a decision to choose a religious affilaition, for emotional, aesthetic, or cultural reasons, on the grounds that it is internally coherent.

But I have four top of mind problems with it:

- when speaking to anyone outside the circle of faith-participation, it is circular.

- Its very circularity defines and reinforces its apart-ness and sectarian dimension, making broadly intelligible human discourse more difficult, even as we admit that universal foundations may be unavailable. It seems like a giving-up. So it smells of nihilism, as far as I can tell, insofar as it not only merely decenters the modern evidentiary-postivist-empiricist paradigm, but seeks to take a second step and claim that all rationalities, even highly subjective and arbitrary rationalities, are equally valid if internally consistent. I don't have the expertise to attack that notion thoroughly, but it seems to be a bridge too far and doesn't pass the sniff test. One can imagine a horrific ideology that is internally coherent. Do we just hope that people pick God and not Hitler, scientific rationalism or democracy and not al-qaeda, with no foundations for rational choice, not even humbled foundations? Are we limited to aesthetic, emotional, and evolutionary-determinist factors alone? I'm probably missing something, but this is a concern.

- I question the value and intent of its project. I utterly reject the triumphalism and exclusivism that presumes that any one religion has it all figured out and possesses the only full, coherent, reliable truth. This strikes me as the intellectual equivalent of pulling open one's trenchcoat and masturbating assertively within sight of all passersby. It is onanistic and disrespectful. It makes an idol of one's thought pattern, in this case, christianity. I find it striking that other religions don't seem to feel the need to do this, and so politely and humbly keep their coats closed.

- It is associated with and provides cover for far right wing, ultra-orthodox forms of Christianity. Van Til and more recently Plantinga etc might be nice people (putting aside their tendency toward totalizing triumphalism and onanism), but it is curious to me that only neo-calvinists are doing this work. And when it passes to and through people like RJ Rushdoony and Francis Shaeffer, it provides the intellectual gloss for extremists. Its almost exclusive association with these extreme anti-modern, irrational, reactionary, exclusivist, and theocratic movements speaks poorly of it; we are to some degree responsible for our children. 50 nice academics and 50 million wingnuts is not a good situation. So it doesn't seem enough to say that all rationalities are equal and that 1. internal coherence is all that matters and 2. only christianty is internally coherent, not when the Christine O'Donnel's and Sharron Angle's of this world are close to taking power and would force rape victime, incest victims and people (like my wife) whose life is threatened by pregnancy to undergo birthing for the glory of their (small and peurile) god.
It reminds me of the circular, totalizing, and self-validating ideology that we last saw in Stalinism, where to question the inevitable logic of history was to be deemed mentally ill and outside the human community. I can imagine sanitoriums where non-extremist dissenters are reprogrammed to accept presuppositional apologetics and then recite the nicene creed or face hard labor (supported by some OT bible quotes I'd guess). Am I drawing a possible line connecting presuppositional apologetics and a possible emerging genocidal totalitarian theocracy waiting to happen, stoppable ony by a second civil war? A second set of religious wars lasting 200 years, but this time in America? Yes. I'd admire the academics more of they supported moderation; instead they seem to be building god's army and acting naively about it.

Lastly, in studying for two degrees in religion, including studying with the founders of right-leaning theological post-liberalism, and in over 20 years since, I never even heard of presuppositional apologetics until recently. That is suggestive that is was fringe, so that it is now redefining the center is concerning.

RE: OP question about WL Craig not using this stuff? My guess is that 1. he's stuck in modernity, still arguing evidence, and 2. he's too stupid.

I will close by saying that, for all my concerns, PA and post-liberal, neo-calvinist, and paleo-orthodox movements are not cartoons; They cannot be dismissed. They are major intellectual movements developed by world class thinkers. To argue with these post-modern thinkers from an exclusively modern evidentiary perspective is a fool's errand. It will take more. And in many ways, they are onto some good stuff; it's a fascinating time. I can imagine an inclusivist or pluralist and benign version of religion that is informed by some of them (if not by Van Til). But so far the real world effect has been a sharp rightward shift (you don't see buddhists or bahai's referencing them to account for their own belief choices). They're not going away. So this thread may be the beginning of a 50 year dialogue. Strap yourselves in.

BTW, the guy in the video on the left, strikes me as a totally horrible arrogant asshat, the kind of guy I avoid and would slit my wrists if he ever had power. He's just so terrible. Just his body language, facial expression, manner of expression, volume, interrupting, reductio's, no desire to engage and agree on anything, unfair questions and unfair demands. Not to mention what he says, which is assinine. I'd so much rather hang out with the atheist, even before what he has to say. Why are christian apologists so often total hateful jerks? Is this the future? AND, Mr. Christian has nothing to say that isn't circular and laughable. I can't seem to see how it can be seem to be "working." Is the OP joking? The atheist seems like a reasonable, honest, fair, and nice guy, he could marry my sister if I had one.
I just took a step away from christianity (but not from christ, who was a buddha). Thanks for the video.

[steven84]

Can any atheists explain how they justify or account for immaterial, universal & absolute laws of logic such as the law of non-contradiction?

Or do you deny it?

If so why?

[McCulloch]

Can any atheists explain how they justify or account for immaterial, universal & absolute laws of logic such as the law of non-contradiction?

Or do you deny it?

If so why?

How do theists explain the law of non-contradiction? If God created it, then God is beyond, above or somehow not subject to it, thus you cannot even logically speak of God. If God did not create it then you are on the same footing as we non-theists, the law of non-contradiction is axiomatic.

[steven84]

Still waiting for an actual answer to my last post.

[Goat]

Can any atheists explain how they justify or account for immaterial, universal & absolute laws of logic such as the law of non-contradiction?

Or do you deny it?

If so why?

"LOGIC" is just a set of metaphysical rules that man devised that are based on observation , and seeing how the world works. It might be 'immateral', but it is just descriptive of what is observed.

Logic is just a metaphysical tool to help describe what is observed.

[McCulloch]

Can any atheists explain how they justify or account for immaterial, universal & absolute laws of logic such as the law of non-contradiction?

How do theists explain the law of non-contradiction? If God created it, then God is beyond, above or somehow not subject to it, thus you cannot even logically speak of God. If God did not create it then you are on the same footing as we non-theists, the law of non-contradiction is axiomatic.

Still waiting for an actual answer to my last post.

I thought that I did answer that post. Perhaps I should expand.

First off, let me assume that theist and atheist both agree on the validity of the law of non-contradiction. Without that, no rational discussion can take place. Steven84 asks for an atheist explanation for this law, implying but not stating that there is a theist explanation. But this presumption is false. The theist is as lost as the atheist with regard to explaining the law of non-contradiction.

Here is why. It bears a remarkable similarity to the Euthyphro dilemma. How does the theist explain the law of non-contradiction? If they say that God created this law, then God, the rule maker, is not subject to this law. Just as any human Parliament can change the laws it enacts, God could conceivably make exceptions or even revoke this rule. This would then make God into the unknowable, inconceivable other. It would be impossible to discuss this God rationally, since the law of non-contradiction is the basis of all rational discussion and this God is not subject to that law.

If, however, the theist claims that God himself is subject to the law of non-contradiction, then God cannot be used as an explanation for this law. It exists prior to and independent of God. It is axiomatic. That is, it is evident without proof or argument.

[Flail]

.

Presuppositions are acceptable and even necessary, but when we call them 'truths' and parade them around as if from 'Gods' they become divisive and potentially dangerous for everyone.

I agree -- and add that identifying "presuppositions" (assumptions) as TRUTH ("from god") is dishonest.

Agreed....and they are equally dishonest whether claimed as to BibleGod, KoranGod or Zeus.

[theopoesis]

As a general introduction to the idea of presuppositionalism vs. evidentialism, I merely wish to point out that presuppositionalism does us credit to point to our historical embeddedness. Whereas evidentialism is synchronic, presuppositionalism is diachronic, recognizing that all thought systems are founded in prior historical, cultural, and philosophical developments which have unfolded through time into a priori intellectual foundations. The presuppositionalist takes seriously the mind's historical embeddedness in a particular human being within a particular culture and epoch and asks the observer to question the arbitrary nature of our sitz en leben so to speak, whereas evidentialism seems to ignore the fact that human beings think and operate within historical reality, instead conjecturing a transcendental mind able to clearly observe the world, society, and self as "other" without itself being drawn into the temporality (and even historicity) of existence itself. Is it more dishonest to consider a presupposition truth while admitting its presuppositional nature, or to assume the mind's ability to transcend history in determining truth, and thereby failing to even admit the existence of the historically determined presupposition?

I say dishonesty is a plague around here if we judge dishonesty by the scale offered in previous posts. But why point fingers and call names? Such are merely the consequences of a psyche responding to the other-ness of a distinct presuppositional matrix.

That being said, I greatly appreciate Slopeshoulder's comments, and wish to continue a conversation which began in private on this thread.

I've been thinking a bit every day about presuppositional apologetics, ever since theopoesis was kind enough to tell me about it recently. And while it is well known that I take post-modernity seriously, I cannot get past the stumbling block that it is circular.

I noticed on another post a few weeks back (personal matters have kept me away from the forum for a while) that you'd read some presuppositionalists. Had I known you'd take my ideas so seriously, I would have warned you that Van Til, though the origin of my thinking, is also a terribly angry man who I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading to anyone. He lashes out quite frequently. Given the bitterness of the Princeton Seminary battles, I can understand his nature with a degree with sympathy. I have my own scars from church splits. Anyway, I'm back (although perhaps briefly) and figured I'd do what I can to continue the much enjoyed dialogue with you, while perhaps avoiding some of the pitfalls of Van Til and others.

I acknowledge that it can support a decision to choose a religious affilaition, for emotional, aesthetic, or cultural reasons, on the grounds that it is internally coherent.

But I have four top of mind problems with it:

- when speaking to anyone outside the circle of faith-participation, it is circular.

This is necessarily so. You are astute to recognize this, but I think (with some digging) the same objection can be made to any robust epistemology or paradigm of another nature.

- Its very circularity defines and reinforces its apart-ness and sectarian dimension, making broadly intelligible human discourse more difficult, even as we admit that universal foundations may be unavailable. It seems like a giving-up. So it smells of nihilism, as far as I can tell, insofar as it not only merely decenters the modern evidentiary-postivist-empiricist paradigm, but seeks to take a second step and claim that all rationalities, even highly subjective and arbitrary rationalities, are equally valid if internally consistent. I don't have the expertise to attack that notion thoroughly, but it seems to be a bridge too far and doesn't pass the sniff test. One can imagine a horrific ideology that is internally coherent. Do we just hope that people pick God and not Hitler, scientific rationalism or democracy and not al-qaeda, with no foundations for rational choice, not even humbled foundations? Are we limited to aesthetic, emotional, and evolutionary-determinist factors alone? I'm probably missing something, but this is a concern.

In my opinion "broadly intelligible human discourse" is only possible through the conquest of other discourses by a more powerful discourse. (In this statement I do not intend to equate power with truthfullness). We see this everywhere. E. O. Wilson's Conscillience is a perfect example. In it, Wilson attempts to explain as much of human existence and culture as possible in scientific terms. Wilson begins with a commitment to science and then circularly performs this presuppositional commitment to demonstrate the scientific nature of everything. Similarly, economists of late have attempted to explain all things in terms of utility and desire and free action and exchange within a market, reducing religion, culture, and so forth to economic epiphenomena. Political science has begun making similar moves (I am thinking particularly of rational choice theorists), whereby all human action is interpreted as the consequence of a rational, self-interested individual in pursuit of power. Now these theories are not just verbal attempts at conquest of other metanarratives, they are performed in various ways throughout society. Whereas Science is more peaceful at present through scientism's gradual conquest of other field's methodologies, leading to the primacy of experimentation and mathematical analysis in all fields of academia, capitalist economics offers a much more forceful conquest through globalization and the incessant drive to open markets and create consumers. As such, science explains all because all becomes committed to scientific methodology, and as such economics explains all in terms of consumption because it first turns all individuals into consumers.

I find your analogy of Nihilism to be very interesting. Personally, I love the writings of Neitzsche because I consider his work to be a metanarrative on metanarratives (I'm even confusing myself here to a degree). For Neitzsche, the slave morality can only be conquered through the sheer will to power. The battlefield between paradigms is seen as the battlefield of one power over another. This is the inevitable conclusion of many paradigms, but I believe Christianity can offer a strong counterbalance to this metanarrative as power schema. Might Christianity be perhaps a liberative power? Gutierrez suggests this much to me at the least. If the exertion of power by Christianity over others is inevitable, let us direct that power toward freeing bodies and souls, seeking justice and redemption. I can come no where close to demonstrating it, but I often consider the alternatives to be Neitszche/nihilism and Christ/fideism. But I think I have gotten ahead of myself. Back to trying to outline the nature of a response to your objection...

If we are historically embodied individuals, "Broadly intelligible human discourse" requires first a broadly united historical embodiment (if we are to take the diachronic claims of presuppositionalism seriously). The subtext here is the elimination of diversity and diverse cultures (i.e. humanities) into a single "human" with a single "history" whose singularity is in fact the performance of that metanarrative which claims to clearly define the human as such. In other words, you are quite astute to recognize the arbitrariness in the selection of paradigms.

Now, if I understand correctly, what presuppositionalism demonstrates to us is that the only rational way to critique a particular rationality is through a reductio ad absurdam, i.e. through showing how that system's presuppositions do not support it's conclusions. Insofar as that system's rationality is the manifestation of a particular diachronic reality, the rationality is distinct and protected from other rationalities until either (1) that historical determinant is changed, or (2) that rationality is demonstrated to be invalidly circular. Note that method #1 is not rational per se, as much as it is historical. Human action is still important, but reason itself may not be as vital as praxis in the battle between metanarratives.

I do not advocate that we just "hope" people do not pick Hitler. I am simply saying that in the effort to dissuade people from picking Hitler, it would be more effective to ameliorate the historical realities from which Nazism arose (post WWI debt, a rhetoric of self-determination, anti-Jewish actions, colonial conquests) rather than to attack the rationality of Nazism itself. Such attacks will be incomprehensible to the Nazi except wherein the Nazi's own logic can be seen as self-defeating. Praxis is the battlefield of culture more often than reason.

- I question the value and intent of its project. I utterly reject the triumphalism and exclusivism that presumes that any one religion has it all figured out and possesses the only full, coherent, reliable truth. This strikes me as the intellectual equivalent of pulling open one's trenchcoat and masturbating assertively within sight of all passersby. It is onanistic and disrespectful. It makes an idol of one's thought pattern, in this case, christianity. I find it striking that other religions don't seem to feel the need to do this, and so politely and humbly keep their coats closed.

I like your metaphor here. I also admit to the arrogance of particular Christians and at time of myself.

I believe there are several points to be made here. First, if my painting of things above is correct, all metanarratives are carnivorous. Only some represent themselves as such. The late modernist metanarrative is one example of a paradigm that is carnivorous and yet which displays itself as open to all others.

Second, I think it is possible and dangerous to idolize one's paradigm. There are countless examples from history of individuals doing this, to their and (at times) to society's destruction. Van Til certainly was more triumphalistic than I would prefer. On the other hand, one need not say that the presuppositionalist approach necessarily leads to such triumphalism. Anselm's "faith seeking understanding" comes to mind. If our knowledge is historically determined and particular, and if the Christian presupposes that knowledge to be divinely guided through whatever theological tenet - election, redemption history, pneumatology - then to suddenly idolize one's intellectual paradigm is to divorce oneself from the diachronic nature of reason, thereby separating oneself from the election, providence, redemption history, guidance of the Holy Spirit, and creatio continua of the Triune Christian God. In other words, insofar as Van Til saw his project as completed and finally true, he left his own presuppositionalistic paradigm itself for a syncrhonic one. Or, perhaps, I am taking my views which are influenced by Van Til and projecting them back onto Van Til himself.

- It is associated with and provides cover for far right wing, ultra-orthodox forms of Christianity. Van Til and more recently Plantinga etc might be nice people (putting aside their tendency toward totalizing triumphalism and onanism), but it is curious to me that only neo-calvinists are doing this work. And when it passes to and through people like RJ Rushdoony and Francis Shaeffer, it provides the intellectual gloss for extremists. Its almost exclusive association with these extreme anti-modern, irrational, reactionary, exclusivist, and theocratic movements speaks poorly of it; we are to some degree responsible for our children. 50 nice academics and 50 million wingnuts is not a good situation. So it doesn't seem enough to say that all rationalities are equal and that 1. internal coherence is all that matters and 2. only christianty is internally coherent, not when the Christine O'Donnel's and Sharron Angle's of this world are close to taking power and would force rape victime, incest victims and people (like my wife) whose life is threatened by pregnancy to undergo birthing for the glory of their (small and peurile) god.

I won't pretend to have the ability to address many of the issues in this section. It seems that there are many personal matters within, and so I will only say to much of your post that I am sorry for any personal grief that more conservative Christians may have caused you and your wife through her pregnancy. As a conservative Christian, I am partly responsible.

That being said, I would like to mention that presuppositionalism began with Van Til and the conservatives, but it has found its counterpart in radical orthodoxy. Read John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory and you will find a theologian attempting to do many of the same things that Van Til was doing, in a much clearer way (and at other times a much more obscure way). Perhaps Milbank is also triumphalistic, but he is certainly no neo-calvinist.

You say, "Its almost exclusive association with these extreme anti-modern, irrational, reactionary, exclusivist, and theocratic movements speaks poorly of it." I say, what is so wrong with being anti-modern? I, for one, am anti-modern. Modernity brought about the advent of many good things (medicine, film, transportation, women's rights, sewer systems, online religion forums, etc.) but it has also created many deep problems (pollution and climate change, social alienation evident in such phenomena as the hikikomoro, unprecidented international violence, nuclear bombs, a vacuous moral system, existential isolation, depersonalization and deconstruction of the community, globalization and the resulting destruction of cultures and peoples). There are many presuppositionalist Christians who are poor moral individuals, but there are also individuals who work with the homeless, practice medicine, donate heavily to charity, combat AIDS, etc. etc. It is a complex thing to analyze the proponents of an ideology in a unitary fashion.

It reminds me of the circular, totalizing, and self-validating ideology that we last saw in Stalinism, where to question the inevitable logic of history was to be deemed mentally ill and outside the human community. I can imagine sanitoriums where non-extremist dissenters are reprogrammed to accept presuppositional apologetics and then recite the nicene creed or face hard labor (supported by some OT bible quotes I'd guess). Am I drawing a possible line connecting presuppositional apologetics and a possible emerging genocidal totalitarian theocracy waiting to happen, stoppable ony by a second civil war? A second set of religious wars lasting 200 years, but this time in America? Yes. I'd admire the academics more of they supported moderation; instead they seem to be building god's army and acting naively about it.

Interesting perspective.

Lastly, in studying for two degrees in religion, including studying with the founders of right-leaning theological post-liberalism, and in over 20 years since, I never even heard of presuppositional apologetics until recently. That is suggestive that is was fringe, so that it is now redefining the center is concerning.

Is this a testament to the fringe nature of presuppositionalism, or a testament to the closed nature of most education, wherein study is reserved only for those authors who either (1) fit within the dominant paradigm or (2) serve as easy foils for the dominant paradigm? I, for one, have often considered asking for my money back from Duke. In some ways, my education was a joke. Thank God they had a large library. Half of what I know I just read on my own. I also thank God that you are an individual who seems to have made good use of your own library (or perhaps even libraries). It's always a pleasure to talk with you. You offer very real critiques of presuppositionalism, which converts to very real challenges to my own thinking, which in turn converts into very real growth in my own thinking, understanding, and faith. I do hope my schedule slows down so we can dialogue more often. (I also have a LONG overdue response to McCulloch on the Trinity, but it's going to take more research than I have time for at present... oh well.)

Take care, Slopeshoulder.

[Slopeshoulder]

As a general introduction to the idea of presuppositionalism vs. evidentialism, I merely wish to point out that presuppositionalism does us credit to point to our historical embeddedness. Whereas evidentialism is synchronic, presuppositionalism is diachronic, recognizing that all thought systems are founded in prior historical, cultural, and philosophical developments which have unfolded through time into a priori intellectual foundations. The presuppositionalist takes seriously the mind's historical embeddedness in a particular human being within a particular culture and epoch and asks the observer to question the arbitrary nature of our sitz en leben so to speak, whereas evidentialism seems to ignore the fact that human beings think and operate within historical reality, instead conjecturing a transcendental mind able to clearly observe the world, society, and self as "other" without itself being drawn into the temporality (and even historicity) of existence itself. Is it more dishonest to consider a presupposition truth while admitting its presuppositional nature, or to assume the mind's ability to transcend history in determining truth, and thereby failing to even admit the existence of the historically determined presupposition?

I say dishonesty is a plague around here if we judge dishonesty by the scale offered in previous posts. But why point fingers and call names? Such are merely the consequences of a psyche responding to the other-ness of a distinct presuppositional matrix.

That being said, I greatly appreciate Slopeshoulder's comments, and wish to continue a conversation which began in private on this thread.

I've been thinking a bit every day about presuppositional apologetics, ever since theopoesis was kind enough to tell me about it recently. And while it is well known that I take post-modernity seriously, I cannot get past the stumbling block that it is circular.

I noticed on another post a few weeks back (personal matters have kept me away from the forum for a while) that you'd read some presuppositionalists. Had I known you'd take my ideas so seriously, I would have warned you that Van Til, though the origin of my thinking, is also a terribly angry man who I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading to anyone. He lashes out quite frequently. Given the bitterness of the Princeton Seminary battles, I can understand his nature with a degree with sympathy. I have my own scars from church splits. Anyway, I'm back (although perhaps briefly) and figured I'd do what I can to continue the much enjoyed dialogue with you, while perhaps avoiding some of the pitfalls of Van Til and others.

I acknowledge that it can support a decision to choose a religious affilaition, for emotional, aesthetic, or cultural reasons, on the grounds that it is internally coherent.

But I have four top of mind problems with it:

- when speaking to anyone outside the circle of faith-participation, it is circular.

This is necessarily so. You are astute to recognize this, but I think (with some digging) the same objection can be made to any robust epistemology or paradigm of another nature.

- Its very circularity defines and reinforces its apart-ness and sectarian dimension, making broadly intelligible human discourse more difficult, even as we admit that universal foundations may be unavailable. It seems like a giving-up. So it smells of nihilism, as far as I can tell, insofar as it not only merely decenters the modern evidentiary-postivist-empiricist paradigm, but seeks to take a second step and claim that all rationalities, even highly subjective and arbitrary rationalities, are equally valid if internally consistent. I don't have the expertise to attack that notion thoroughly, but it seems to be a bridge too far and doesn't pass the sniff test. One can imagine a horrific ideology that is internally coherent. Do we just hope that people pick God and not Hitler, scientific rationalism or democracy and not al-qaeda, with no foundations for rational choice, not even humbled foundations? Are we limited to aesthetic, emotional, and evolutionary-determinist factors alone? I'm probably missing something, but this is a concern.

In my opinion "broadly intelligible human discourse" is only possible through the conquest of other discourses by a more powerful discourse. (In this statement I do not intend to equate power with truthfullness). We see this everywhere. E. O. Wilson's Conscillience is a perfect example. In it, Wilson attempts to explain as much of human existence and culture as possible in scientific terms. Wilson begins with a commitment to science and then circularly performs this presuppositional commitment to demonstrate the scientific nature of everything. Similarly, economists of late have attempted to explain all things in terms of utility and desire and free action and exchange within a market, reducing religion, culture, and so forth to economic epiphenomena. Political science has begun making similar moves (I am thinking particularly of rational choice theorists), whereby all human action is interpreted as the consequence of a rational, self-interested individual in pursuit of power. Now these theories are not just verbal attempts at conquest of other metanarratives, they are performed in various ways throughout society. Whereas Science is more peaceful at present through scientism's gradual conquest of other field's methodologies, leading to the primacy of experimentation and mathematical analysis in all fields of academia, capitalist economics offers a much more forceful conquest through globalization and the incessant drive to open markets and create consumers. As such, science explains all because all becomes committed to scientific methodology, and as such economics explains all in terms of consumption because it first turns all individuals into consumers.

I find your analogy of Nihilism to be very interesting. Personally, I love the writings of Neitzsche because I consider his work to be a metanarrative on metanarratives (I'm even confusing myself here to a degree). For Neitzsche, the slave morality can only be conquered through the sheer will to power. The battlefield between paradigms is seen as the battlefield of one power over another. This is the inevitable conclusion of many paradigms, but I believe Christianity can offer a strong counterbalance to this metanarrative as power schema. Might Christianity be perhaps a liberative power? Gutierrez suggests this much to me at the least. If the exertion of power by Christianity over others is inevitable, let us direct that power toward freeing bodies and souls, seeking justice and redemption. I can come no where close to demonstrating it, but I often consider the alternatives to be Neitszche/nihilism and Christ/fideism. But I think I have gotten ahead of myself. Back to trying to outline the nature of a response to your objection...

If we are historically embodied individuals, "Broadly intelligible human discourse" requires first a broadly united historical embodiment (if we are to take the diachronic claims of presuppositionalism seriously). The subtext here is the elimination of diversity and diverse cultures (i.e. humanities) into a single "human" with a single "history" whose singularity is in fact the performance of that metanarrative which claims to clearly define the human as such. In other words, you are quite astute to recognize the arbitrariness in the selection of paradigms.

Now, if I understand correctly, what presuppositionalism demonstrates to us is that the only rational way to critique a particular rationality is through a reductio ad absurdam, i.e. through showing how that system's presuppositions do not support it's conclusions. Insofar as that system's rationality is the manifestation of a particular diachronic reality, the rationality is distinct and protected from other rationalities until either (1) that historical determinant is changed, or (2) that rationality is demonstrated to be invalidly circular. Note that method #1 is not rational per se, as much as it is historical. Human action is still important, but reason itself may not be as vital as praxis in the battle between metanarratives.

I do not advocate that we just "hope" people do not pick Hitler. I am simply saying that in the effort to dissuade people from picking Hitler, it would be more effective to ameliorate the historical realities from which Nazism arose (post WWI debt, a rhetoric of self-determination, anti-Jewish actions, colonial conquests) rather than to attack the rationality of Nazism itself. Such attacks will be incomprehensible to the Nazi except wherein the Nazi's own logic can be seen as self-defeating. Praxis is the battlefield of culture more often than reason.

- I question the value and intent of its project. I utterly reject the triumphalism and exclusivism that presumes that any one religion has it all figured out and possesses the only full, coherent, reliable truth. This strikes me as the intellectual equivalent of pulling open one's trenchcoat and masturbating assertively within sight of all passersby. It is onanistic and disrespectful. It makes an idol of one's thought pattern, in this case, christianity. I find it striking that other religions don't seem to feel the need to do this, and so politely and humbly keep their coats closed.

I like your metaphor here. I also admit to the arrogance of particular Christians and at time of myself.

I believe there are several points to be made here. First, if my painting of things above is correct, all metanarratives are carnivorous. Only some represent themselves as such. The late modernist metanarrative is one example of a paradigm that is carnivorous and yet which displays itself as open to all others.

Second, I think it is possible and dangerous to idolize one's paradigm. There are countless examples from history of individuals doing this, to their and (at times) to society's destruction. Van Til certainly was more triumphalistic than I would prefer. On the other hand, one need not say that the presuppositionalist approach necessarily leads to such triumphalism. Anselm's "faith seeking understanding" comes to mind. If our knowledge is historically determined and particular, and if the Christian presupposes that knowledge to be divinely guided through whatever theological tenet - election, redemption history, pneumatology - then to suddenly idolize one's intellectual paradigm is to divorce oneself from the diachronic nature of reason, thereby separating oneself from the election, providence, redemption history, guidance of the Holy Spirit, and creatio continua of the Triune Christian God. In other words, insofar as Van Til saw his project as completed and finally true, he left his own presuppositionalistic paradigm itself for a syncrhonic one. Or, perhaps, I am taking my views which are influenced by Van Til and projecting them back onto Van Til himself.

- It is associated with and provides cover for far right wing, ultra-orthodox forms of Christianity. Van Til and more recently Plantinga etc might be nice people (putting aside their tendency toward totalizing triumphalism and onanism), but it is curious to me that only neo-calvinists are doing this work. And when it passes to and through people like RJ Rushdoony and Francis Shaeffer, it provides the intellectual gloss for extremists. Its almost exclusive association with these extreme anti-modern, irrational, reactionary, exclusivist, and theocratic movements speaks poorly of it; we are to some degree responsible for our children. 50 nice academics and 50 million wingnuts is not a good situation. So it doesn't seem enough to say that all rationalities are equal and that 1. internal coherence is all that matters and 2. only christianty is internally coherent, not when the Christine O'Donnel's and Sharron Angle's of this world are close to taking power and would force rape victime, incest victims and people (like my wife) whose life is threatened by pregnancy to undergo birthing for the glory of their (small and peurile) god.

I won't pretend to have the ability to address many of the issues in this section. It seems that there are many personal matters within, and so I will only say to much of your post that I am sorry for any personal grief that more conservative Christians may have caused you and your wife through her pregnancy. As a conservative Christian, I am partly responsible.

That being said, I would like to mention that presuppositionalism began with Van Til and the conservatives, but it has found its counterpart in radical orthodoxy. Read John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory and you will find a theologian attempting to do many of the same things that Van Til was doing, in a much clearer way (and at other times a much more obscure way). Perhaps Milbank is also triumphalistic, but he is certainly no neo-calvinist.

You say, "Its almost exclusive association with these extreme anti-modern, irrational, reactionary, exclusivist, and theocratic movements speaks poorly of it." I say, what is so wrong with being anti-modern? I, for one, am anti-modern. Modernity brought about the advent of many good things (medicine, film, transportation, women's rights, sewer systems, online religion forums, etc.) but it has also created many deep problems (pollution and climate change, social alienation evident in such phenomena as the hikikomoro, unprecidented international violence, nuclear bombs, a vacuous moral system, existential isolation, depersonalization and deconstruction of the community, globalization and the resulting destruction of cultures and peoples). There are many presuppositionalist Christians who are poor moral individuals, but there are also individuals who work with the homeless, practice medicine, donate heavily to charity, combat AIDS, etc. etc. It is a complex thing to analyze the proponents of an ideology in a unitary fashion.

It reminds me of the circular, totalizing, and self-validating ideology that we last saw in Stalinism, where to question the inevitable logic of history was to be deemed mentally ill and outside the human community. I can imagine sanitoriums where non-extremist dissenters are reprogrammed to accept presuppositional apologetics and then recite the nicene creed or face hard labor (supported by some OT bible quotes I'd guess). Am I drawing a possible line connecting presuppositional apologetics and a possible emerging genocidal totalitarian theocracy waiting to happen, stoppable ony by a second civil war? A second set of religious wars lasting 200 years, but this time in America? Yes. I'd admire the academics more of they supported moderation; instead they seem to be building god's army and acting naively about it.

Interesting perspective.

Lastly, in studying for two degrees in religion, including studying with the founders of right-leaning theological post-liberalism, and in over 20 years since, I never even heard of presuppositional apologetics until recently. That is suggestive that is was fringe, so that it is now redefining the center is concerning.

Is this a testament to the fringe nature of presuppositionalism, or a testament to the closed nature of most education, wherein study is reserved only for those authors who either (1) fit within the dominant paradigm or (2) serve as easy foils for the dominant paradigm? I, for one, have often considered asking for my money back from Duke. In some ways, my education was a joke. Thank God they had a large library. Half of what I know I just read on my own. I also thank God that you are an individual who seems to have made good use of your own library (or perhaps even libraries). It's always a pleasure to talk with you. You offer very real critiques of presuppositionalism, which converts to very real challenges to my own thinking, which in turn converts into very real growth in my own thinking, understanding, and faith. I do hope my schedule slows down so we can dialogue more often. (I also have a LONG overdue response to McCulloch on the Trinity, but it's going to take more research than I have time for at present... oh well.)

Take care, Slopeshoulder.

Dammit, I miss you when you are gone, and then when you come back you make me have to think! Here's what I've come up with so far:
- you're half my age, so I can ignore you
- liar liar pants on fire
- no one likes a smartypants
- and
Clearly I will have to do better!

But seriously, tremendous thanks for your thoughtful, detailed and downright generous response. I have no interest in debating you on this, but rather I do have an enormous interest in discussing more.
I'll need some time to digest. But I look forward to posting a serious reply and asking some questions.
Just great man, thanks again. Back to you soon.

PS: In the meantime, can I impose upon you to elaborate a bit simply on the meaning of synchronic and diachronic. I get the gist, but I confess my ignorance, and wiktionary ain't helping.