On Presuppositional Apologetics.

Why I think Presuppositional Apologetics is problematic.
(to my Christian friends - Evidentialism is better! ;)

[steenystuff]

I studied to look for God. Spent years at it. Studied religions, philosophy, psychology and all sorts of things. God wasn't in any of it. It was only when I got fed up with my quest and actually asked God outright if He was real and to reveal Himself to me if He was, that I met Him. Best thing I ever did was just ask.

[natanaellizama]

I don't think this is a proper understanding. It is not a matter of "knowing God before knowing God", it is that God is a necessary pre-condition for certain things. This doesn't seem problematic to me at all. It is the Kantian project(that there are transcendental categories which ground the possibility of, say, experience). There are ways to deal with this and they are not so easily dismissable. Precisely a large part of German Idealism was done in this way and working from these conditions and then doing an analysis of the things themselves unto reliable conclusions. That's what phenomenologists did, and I take their school very powerful.

I can go into greater detail, but it seems to me that this hinges on a key misunderstanding of what the method of transcendental argumentation and presuppositional logic is about.

BTW, as I understand it, evidentialism can't be true in a key sense: if evidentialists assume a neutral foundation for which to build their apologetics this already denies God as a necessary foundational being. For the evidentialist accepts a foundational neutrality which it logically incompatible with a theist foundation. It is fine to operate AS IF the foundation is neutral as a way to lead towards the non-neutrality of the foundation(which is what the presup does), but if the evidentialist thinks that the foundation IS neutral, then he is already conceding the victory to their opposition. As long as God is not necessary at the foundation he can't be the necessary foundation.

Another comment that I think is where there is a misunderstanding is that this acknowledgement of the pre-condition is not necessary. I don't need to acknowledge that I have senses in order to have senses, but if these senses are a pre-condition for something(like sensory knowledge), then the pre-condition for senses is necessary even if I am unaware of it, or if I object to it.

[WhatsTheTakeaway]

Hey Danny, you might find it useful to talk with Tyler Vela. In my opinion, he is a smart guy and may be able to breakdown presupp more clearly for people.

[godonlyone]

God makes certain that we know his personal characteristics and energies.

[clipperdots]

Thanks for introducing me to so many big words Danny

[daves.d.]

I think the clearer way to put it is to explain that yes, in every day life, most people don't start with God epistemologically, however, they don't realize that all these necessary epistemological elements they use MUST be grounded in Godx whether they realize/recognize it or not. It's a necessity.

Unknowingly, they MUST borrow from the biblical worldview constantly in their lives and the levels of denial of that fact vary (see Romans 1). That's why presups claim that everyone knows God exists, they just suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness.

Just like your video in the review of the Presup roundtable, you ask why shouldn't we go with subjective standards vs objective ones? Why do you think we're inclined to ask that? Because we naturally tend to want to do whatever WE want.

[lightbeforethetunnel]

Danny is misunderstanding Presup in a common way that people misunderstand it. Presups aren't arguing that unbelievers can't know things. We're arguing everyone, including unbelievers CAN and DO know things. But the fact that you can know things contradicts your non-Christian worldview, refuting it.
Since, if your non-Christian worldview were true, that wouldn't be possible.

[lenna]

Well, so far, I understood Presuppositionalism claims as ontological necessity and not as epistemic necessity. But I may be wrong.

[a-atheist]

Presuppositional apologetics can be made sense of and be absolutely correct if and only if you can link the concept of "Truth=God"
Suppose John 14:6 is "True" and the concept of God existing is actually true. Then IF that is the case then they are correct. WHY? Because there is something greater than reason and logic and that is the concept of truth. Every single idea one has is essentially predicated on whether or not it is "true".
Truth can NOT be denied at all. IF one was to say Truth is false, then THAT would be true based upon even what most atheists definition of what truth is, which is "that which comports with reality." This Truth is actually greater than an idea that is based upon having good reason to think its true, or its true because its useful.

Agnosticism is essentially falsified because we CAN know something because that which cannot be denied must be true.
It is the ONE thing that we can safely say we KNOW. The same thing cannot be said about what is "False" because even what is false has to go back to if the statement "this is false" comports with reality, i.e. is it true.

Even if you argue different truth propositions, or even a hierarchy of different truths, then whatever THAT is would be the state of affairs. It would inherently imply an over arching truth value.
We cannot know ANYTHING at all (without truth) including logic because even logic has to go back to if logic ideas are "True". So if God=Truth, then they are correct, if you cannot source anything back to any sort of state of affairs, then you cant make sense of any idea, which includes logic. As some people put it TRUTH is a location, LOGIC is a map and that presupposes that the logic in which we observe is actually the correct map. In many cases we have no good reason to deny logical ideas, but thats a very different thing than not being able to refute it.
Logic is great, but its typically viewed as abstractions, what would be better is something that it comes from that is more "concrete".

[benswartz]

Shh.... Those presuppers are very delicate and get upset when their dogma is delineated as the nonsense that it is.

[kleenex]

I hate Liars, and so I hate Presuppositional-Apologetics from the bottom of my heart.
Within the old GREEK categorization,
PHYSIS = REAL, namely all that is already there = original source
PSYCHE = IMAGINARY, namely all that the brain is making FROM/ABOUT the REAL
LOGOS = REAL, namely the expression=materialisation= ASSERTION-, !!!OF!!! PSYCHE
a categorical distinction is asserted between Physis and expression of Physis,
but the Presuppositional Apologists asserts a conflation between the two.
BEWARE: You can NOT use logic!
All that you CAN use, it is Physis - and it is Logos, an example is an assertion OF logic!
I deem this to be the shortest possible and concise refutation of PSA.