This is a pretty involved debate, and it’s not for the faint of heart. But because it deals with fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, ranging from the doctrine of God to the doctrine man, it is most certainly worth your consideration—in moderation, of course.
Below, I’ve drawn up a few points which are intended to help you consider this discussion more carefully. If you’re new to the conversation, this will especially come in handy. If you’re an old wardog, then this may assist you in “regrouping” as it were, in order to continue impacting the conversation in positive, edifying ways.
This article is intended for both presuppositionalists and classicalists. My hope is that both groups can benefit, even though I have an obvious bias.
1. What Is Presuppositionalism?
Presuppositionalism has been most often described as an apologetic. From Greg Bahnsen’s Presuppositional Apologetics to K. Scott Oliphint’s Covenantal Apologetics, presuppositionalism has been construed as a method for defending the Christian faith.
The two earmarks of presuppositionalism, among others, are revelational epistemology and the transcendental argument for God (TAG). Already, you should see that presuppositionalism, while certainly engaging an apologetic method, entails much more than a mode of defending Christianity. It requires a particular view of epistemology (study of human knowing). It requires one to move out of Christian theology and apologetics and into the field philosophy. This is not a problem (classicalism does it too), but it is helpful to keep in mind since, often, the misconception consists in one thinking presuppositionalism is only a Christian apologetic. There is much more involved.
2. What Is Revelational Epistemology?
Revelational epistemology is most simply put, the act of thinking God’s thoughts after Him. The idea here is that, while we as creatures have to begin the reasoning process in ourselves as we experience the outside world, there is another sense in which God is our ultimate starting point. We know ourselves first (proximate), but in another sense, we know God first (ultimate/remote).
If this sounds confusing, you’re not the only one. In addition to this distinction, the presuppositionalist also maintains the orthodox distinction between general/natural and special revelation. And since both natural revelation (all creation) and special revelation (God’s Word) are forms of divine revelation, we, as creatures, must think according to what God has revealed. There is no other way to know anything save through God’s revelation. Hence, revelation knowing or epistemology.
Presuppositionalists have classically denied natural theology, claiming there is no way for an unbeliever to have any true knowledge about God through creation (cf. Reformed Epistemology, by Van Til). They know God, but according to Romans 1, they suppress the truth about God in unrighteousness and instead fabricate their own idol.
It is within the scope of revelational epistemology that the term presupposition becomes especially important. No fact, according to both Van Til and Oliphint, can be interpreted correctly until one first presupposes the triune God. For citations, please see my previous article. The fact of the triune God must be presupposed prior to any other fact, since the triune God is the concrete universal in which context all other particular facts must be interpreted.
3. What Is the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG)?
The transcendental argument is a rational argument which seeks to dialectically prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary. In other words, if God does not exist, then we cannot make sense of our most basic assumptions (i.e. the laws of logic, induction, morality, etc). This argument has been employed for years by theologians who would not have considered themselves presuppositionalists.
You don’t have to be a presuppositionalist to use TAG. However, some presuppositionalists may claim that TAG is the only philosophical argument Christians should employ as they seek to defend the Christian faith. It’s dialectic character makes the argument appear as if it assumes little to nothing except the triune God of Scripture. However, TAG assumes the laws of logic and it even assumes that the opponent of Christianity can understand, to some extent, the argument itself. There is more than meets the eye when it comes to the presuppositionalist’s commitment to TAG. It doesn’t, at bottom, allow one to presuppose God since it requires one to presuppose the rules of thought (i.e. laws of logic) prior to making any sense of God or the argument itself in the first place.
4. What Is Classicalism?
Like presuppositionalism, classicalism is much more than just an apologetic. Considered in theology proper, it refers to classical Christian theism, a doctrine of God most explicitly characterized by divine simplicity (i.e. God is not composed of parts in any sense). Deuteronomy 6:4 would be the most explicit biblical proof for this doctrine, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!”
Now, because God has revealed Himself through creation (Rom. 1:18), His creatures can know Him (v. 20). But how they can know Him is the question at stake for the classicalist. Romans 1:20 tells us, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse… (NKJV)” The NASB renders it, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
How do creatures know or understand God? They know Him by or through what has been made. In other words, they know God through His works. That’s the basic premise of the classical method of apologetics. Through the works of God, God is proven to exist. The various theistic proofs serve to show how this knowledge of God occurs. The five proofs, for example, are merely five ways or avenues by which one comes to knowledge through what has been made.
5. Parsing the Disagreements
What I could write here would be much lengthier than what I can write here. Basically, the disagreement rests in this question: How is God known by His creatures? Here, we aren’t talking about the saving knowledge mentioned in places like Jeremiah 31:31-34 or Romans 8:29, 30. We are talking about the kind of knowledge and understanding of God all people have according to Romans 1 & 2. So, how is God known in that way?
The presuppositionalist answer is somewhat confusing. But if I could summarize it, I would say their answer would be something along the lines of: All people know God, according to Romans 1, but since they suppress that truth about God in unrighteousness, they end up mutilating that knowledge beyond measure, forming it rather into an idol. Therefore, unbelievers do not have true knowledge of God.
For the classicalist, we would agree that all people know God. But we would add that this knowledge about God has been obtained through God’s works. The works of God are known, and through those works, persons come to an elementary knowledge of the true God. Further, we’d say this knowledge must be true or factual because if it were not, the unbeliever could plea deception, contrary to their guilt of active, conscious suppression clearly mentioned in Romans 1:20b. They are without excuse.
It is not the case that the unbeliever apprehends knowledge about God which is true and not true at the same time and in the same relationship. Such a notion would violate the law of noncontradiction. What the unbeliever does is they apprehend true, factual knowledge about God, and then they actively and consciously try to suppress that truth through a plethora of sinful means. God has clearly shown Himself to them through His work of creation. The sinner tries to get away from that reality.
Another point of tension between the presuppositionalist and the classicalist would concern epistemological categories. The classicalist would hold to a classicalist epistemology which involves the conformity of our intellect to the outside world. All knowledge starts with the senses, but it ends in the intellect. This is why God created us with sensory faculties, to explore the world around us and learn about Him while doing it.
For the presuppositionalist, all people are born with a pre-downloaded knowledge of God. Sometimes, borrowing the language of John Calvin in book I of his Institutes, they call this pre-downloaded knowledge the sensus divinitatus (the divine sense). The classicalist would agree that man has a sensus divinitatus, but the sensus is just that, a sense. It’s a faculty for knowing God, an aptitude, if you will. For the presuppositionalist, it seems to be a basic body of self-evident facts about God. The classicalist denies this is the case on the basis of Romans 1. Man knows God, not by virtue of self-evidentiary truth or pre-downloaded, a priori knowledge, but through the works of God.
6. Theology Proper Issues
According to their work, Cornelius Van Til, K. Scott Oliphint, and John Frame are all presuppositionalists. They are also theistic personalists. Neither party consistently affirms the doctrine of divine simplicity, a doctrine found in the confessional document to which all three men claim adherence. It says:
There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions… (WCF, 2:1)
In the case of Van Til, he affirmed what he called equal ultimacy, which no doubt led him to a kind of theistic dualism, where oneness and threeness in God are seen to be two different, yet equal, concrete objects. In Christian Apologetics, p. 25, Van Til affirmed a logical contradiction by affirming, on the one hand, divine simplicity before going on to suggest there were fundamental attributes that formed the whole of His being on the other. Oliphint, in Reasons for Faith: Philosophy in the Service of Theology, famously ascribed what he called covenantal properties to God as a result of God’s covenantal condescension. He interprets the doctrine of God through incarnational categories, thereby ignoring the classical method of theology. John Frame, perhaps worst of all, in his massive volume, The Doctrine of God, opined two existences in God—one eternal another temporal. He also suggests God entered time upon creation.
What caused these aberrations of orthodox theology proper? Was it correlation or causation as it relates to presuppositionalism?
I’ll let you decide.
I suggest the cause for these disruptions in orthodox thought is the emphasis of epistemology over ontology (reality, being), which no doubt leads to rationalism. This rationalism can be seen in places like Introduction to Systematic Theology, where Van Til suggests the Trinity, an article of the Christian faith, could be deduced through creation, leaving one to ask the question, Where is faith? What then is the significance of special revelation if not to reveal the triune God and His plan of redemption?
What begins as a pious affirmation of divine revelation tends to end with the bad fruits of man-centered rationalism. This is always bound to happen when the emphasis is placed on what we know rather than on reality and what’s out there. Presuppositionalism seems to have become Enlightenment thought par excellence.
There are several variables that go into why presuppositionalists reject the classical construction of the doctrine of God. It could, of course, stem simply from a grudge against Thomas Aquinas, who is most known for his arguments for God’s existence and his doctrine of God. Again, I’ll let you decide.
There is much more to say. But hopefully, this brief survey will be enough to whet your appetite.