Presuppositional apologetics

Presuppositional apologetics is a school of Christian apologetics, a field of Christian theology that attempts to (1) present a rational basis for the Christian faith, (2) defend the faith against objections, and (3) attack the alleged flaws of other worldviews. Presuppositional apologetics is especially concerned with the third aspect of this discipline, though it generally sees the trifold distinction as a difference in emphasis rather than as delineating three separate endeavors. Presuppositional apologetics developed in and is most commonly advocated within Reformed circles of Christianity.

Related Topics:
Christian apologetics - Christian theology - Rational - Worldview - Reformed

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The key discriminator of this school is that it maintains that the Christian apologist must assume the truth of the supernatural revelation contained in the Bible (that is, the Christian worldview) because there can be no set of neutral assumptions from which to reason with a non-Christian. In other words, presuppositionalists say that a Christian cannot consistently declare his belief in the necessary existence of the God of the Bible and simultaneously argue on the basis of a different set of assumptions (presumably those of the non-Christian) in which God may or may not exist.

Related Topics:
Revelation - Bible - Existence - God

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Presuppositionalists contrast their approach with the other schools of Christian apologetics by describing them as assuming the world is intelligible apart from belief in the existence of God and then arguing exclusively on (purportedly) neutral grounds to support trusting the Christian Scriptures. Specifically, presuppositionalists describe Thomistic (also "Traditional" or "Classical") apologetics as concentrating on the first aspect of apologetics with its logical proofs for the existence of God. Aquinas himself insists that many crucial truths can only be known through scripture, and none of his arguments are intended to show the entire Christian picture. Presuppositionalists, however, consider his arguments unglorifying to God, because they ignore even a part of revelation for the sake of argument. The goal is to argue that nonbelievers' assumptions require believing in some things about God that they don't believe (e.g. that an eternal, perfectly good, designer created the universe), but presuppositionalists consider any argument that stops short of the full biblical revelation is dishonoring to God.

Related Topics:
Scripture - Thomistic - Logical proofs

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Evidentialist apologetics, on the other hand, focuses especially on the first two aspects of the discipline by offering various archaeological, historical, and scientific evidences to support both the probable existence of God and the truth of the Bible and refute the major objections to the same. Presuppositionalists consider such arguments dishonoring to God for slightly different reasons. While they don't think classical arguments are good enough on the grounds that they don't show enough about God, they think evidentialists simply haven't given a strong enough demonstration. The evidentialist's conclusion is that the Bible is accurate about what it reports, and thus the whole of biblical revelation follows. The problem is that evidentialists' arguments lack certainty. They show, at most, only that the best explanation is Christianity. Other explanations could be possible. Presuppositionalists think this is dishonoring to God because God's existence is metaphysically necessary. Evidentialists might agree that God's existence is metaphysically necessary as well, but they don't think they can show that God's existence is epistemologically necessary, i.e. that we can prove it for sure. These are clearly different kinds of necessity, and evidentialists don't believe they are dishonoring God by denying epistemological necessity, but presuppositionalists want to keep these two kinds of necessity together.

Related Topics:
Evidentialist - Archaeological - Historical - Scientific - Evidence - Probable

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