Presuppositional Apologetics Of Christian School: A Logical Viewpoint For Christian Faith

The Moral Argument for the Existence of God

Discuss about the Presuppositional Apologetics of Christian school.

Presuppositional apologetics supports the Christian school of Apologetics which presents a logical viewpoint for the Christian faith and protects it from the objections of the other worldviews by showing the logical flaws of the other worldviews and thus emphasising that Christianity is the only worldview which makes consistent sense of reality. It says that except for presuppositions, sense of any human experience could be made and there cannot be any neutral assumptions to reason with a non-Christian. Presupposition does not discard the evidence but this evidence is not used in the most conventional manner.

This approach asks the Christians and the non-Christians to get involved in an introspective examination of their worldviews and then conclude if they are consistent or not. Presuppositionalists after comparing their presuppositions against various factors like empirical experiences, reasons etc claim that presupposition is an ideology over which no other worldview takes priority.

And for a Christian, the ultimate presupposition should be the contents of the scripture. Some people believe that presuppositional apologetics is logically incorrect as it questions the truth of Christianity and non-truth of the other worldviews. Some people have said that the purpose of presuppositionalism is to change the minds and not just close mouths. Presuppositions are the ideas that everyone has and they affect their thinking, viewpoints and how they interpret evidence. Whereas Apologetics is the reasoned or logical oppose to these ideas. So we can say that presuppositional apologetics is the logical oppose to the beliefs of the Christians based on recognising their presuppositions. For example, my presupposition is that god is there and he has given us his expression to us in the form of the Bible. So I will make use of the Bible as the foundation of how to interpret and explain the world near me. But for a person who does not believe in the existence of god, the truth is different. He might believe that a man determines the truth so he thinks, interprets and perceives the Bible accordingly. If we believe that the Bible is the word of God, then we use it as our dictum (something that does not require any evidence, proof or disproof).

The Bible takes this viewpoint, assuming that god exists and there is nothing that needs to be proven here. The conflict here is not over the evidence but over the philosophies-presuppositions.

Discussing these points in detail

The question of god’s existence has been debated throughout history and we have people who are there on both the sides of the dispute. Nowadays we have people who argue against the existence of god and remark anyone believing in god as illogical or delusional. These new generation atheists assert that the belief in god is intellectually unwarranted these days. A Christian presuppositionalist believes in the existence of god and will also validate the Christian theism? And some people who are the believers of god argue that the very existence of man raises the question about the existence of god. To answer the question why do we have something rather than nothing at all we have four possible responses which could further be discussed in detail:

• Reality is illusional.
• Reality is self creational.
• Reality is eternal.
• Reality is something that was created by something that is eternal.

Reality is illusional is what many Eastern religions believe. This option was ruled out centuries ago by a mathematician Rene Descartes. He argued that if he can think, then he must “be”. So this cannot be an illusion as an illusion required something that experiences the illusion. Also, how can one doubt his own existence without proving his existence? It’s a self contradicting argument. And thus the chances of reality being illusional are removed.

Next option was reality being self creational. In philosophy, we come across certain statements that are “analytically false”, which means that they are false by definition only. This option of reality being self creational is among one of those statements. How can something be there prior to its own existence? This means that if you created yourself, then you must have existed before you created yourself and that cannot be the case.  We have also read about spontaneous generation, meaning that something came out of nothing. To which atheist David Hume says “I have not asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.” And thus the point that reality is self creational is also ruled out.

The other two options – reality being eternal or reality being created by something that is eternal. Theologian Jonathan Edwards summarised this as –

• Something is existing.
• Something cannot be created by something.
• So, a definite and eternal something exists.

Going back to “something” that is eternal. A person, who does not believe in God is the immortal creator must believe in an immortal universe, as it is the only option he can choose. But now the question arises, where is this heading to? Is it pointing towards mind before matter or matter before mind?  From the scientific viewpoint, the scientists claim that the universe had a beginning and anything that has a beginning cannot be eternal. To support this we have the big bang theory and also the Einstein’s theory of relativity which point towards Universe being a single entity and having a beginning. Thus proving that universe is not eternal. As the atheists put it that an effect must be similar to or bear a resemblance to its cause, but no atheist could summarise how a neutral, pointless, absurd and an unprincipled universe created the US, the human beings, who are full of character,  have a purpose and are moral also. So all these things completely negate the idea of the universe giving rise to everything that exists and thus the concept of the universe being eternal is also rules out. Philosopher J.S mill concludes that “the only mind can create mind and it is self evident”. And there is only one logical and reasonable conclusion that there is an eternal creator who created reality. We can put it into the following set of statements:-

• Something there exists.
• We don’t get something out of anything.
• Thus a mandatory and eternal something exists.
• This something could either be an “eternal universe” or an “eternal creator”.
• Science and philosophy both negate the concept of the eternal universe.
• Thus proving the concept of an eternal creator as true.

Conclusion

Now that we have come to the conclusion that there exists an eternal creator, we have another question that arises that if there is a creator, what are his characteristics, how can we conclude things about him, out of the things that he created. Putting it differently, can we interpret the cause from its effect? Yes, we can. The god of the Bible wonderfully describes such a creator and it perfectly fits his description of being supernatural, powerful, eternal, omnipresent, timeless and changeless, immaterial, personal, infinite and singular at the same time, intelligent, purposeful, moral, and caring.

As the atheists still question the existence of god, it is better to do the reverse questioning with him on this matter. The atheists claim that there is “no god” is an insupportable statement form the philosophical point of view. We should understand here that a positive theory can still be proved but a negative theory that denies something’s existence, cannot be proved. For example, if someone says that there are red vultures and someone else might be saying that the red vultures do not exist, the former only needs to fine one red vulture to prove his point but the latter will have to be present everywhere literally in order to ensure that he has not missed any red vulture, which is impossible to do. And thus the honest atheists will agree to this that they cannot prove that the god does not exist.

Conclusion:

We also need to understand the truthfulness of the claims that are made and amount of evidence required to prove their claims. For example, if someone keeps two lemonade glasses in front of you and tells you that one is sweet and the other one is salty. You may not think much and just pick one. But if the host tells you that one cup of lemonade is sweet and the other one has poison in it, you would want to have much of an evidence to prove that the cup you choose does not have poison in it and you would no just randomly pick one. Similar is the case when a person is deciding between atheism and belief in god. For atheism, a person may be required to present concrete evidence for the non existence of god, which he cannot. So can we conclude that there is a logical and reasonable argument for the existence of god?  Yes, absolutely! But there are still atheists who doubt his existence. But for people who believe in his existence, there is a way of salvation for them.

References

Barker, Chris. "A Presuppositional Account Of Proportional Ambiguity". Semantics and Linguistic Theory 3 (2015): 1.

Beilby, Jim. "Alvin Plantinga And Christian Apologetics - By Keith A. Mascord". Religious Studies Review 34, no. 3 (2008): 174-175.

Fremstedal, Roe. "The Moral Argument For The Existence Of God And Immortality". Journal of Religious Ethics 41, no. 1 (2013): 50-78.

Griffiths, Paul J. "Introducing Apologetics". Faith and Philosophy 28, no. 3 (2011): 359-365.

HELM, PAUL. "From Existence To God: A Contemporary Philosophical Argument". Philosophical Books 34, no. 1 (2009): 59-60.

Huh, Jeng-Hoon. "Kant's Moral Argument For The Existence Of God". Journal of educational Research Institute 9, no. 1 (2007).

Lærke, Mogens. "Leibniz's Cosmological Argument For The Existence Of God". Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 93, no. 1 (2011).

McLeod-Harrison, Mark S. "Socrates And St. Paul: Can Christian Apologetics Be Public Philosophy?". Essays in Philosophy 15, no. 1 (2014): 117-137.

Wilson, DN. "Postmodern Epistemology And The Christian Apologetics Of CS Lewis". Verbum et Ecclesia 27, no. 2 (2006).