Does Following the Evidence Lead One Over a Cliff?

Over on Triablogue, apologist Steve Hays has posted a blog entitled Am I a presuppositionalist? In this entry, Hays runs through a number of topics pertaining to the distinctions between presuppositionalism and evidentialism, both schools of Christian apologetics. His post is a reply to a description of evidentialism given by fellow apologists Tim and Lydia McGrew.

There’s a lot to consider in Hays’ post, and I have been tempted to give it a more thorough treatment, but I decided to keep today’s post relatively short as I want only to interact with a statement Hays makes towards the end of his post, where he fits in his predictable jab against atheism.

Walking on Water vs. Reality

A famous passage in the gospel of Matthew goes as follows:

And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God. (Matthew 14:22-33)

A number of issues could be raised in response to this passage.

I Reject Christianity Because It’s Not True, Part I

Over on The Gospel Coalition site, in a posting titled I Reject Christianity Because _______________, highly-pedigreed champion of Christian apologetics James Anderson recently offered some responses to what are styled as “four popular objections” against Christianity, apparently in an effort to head critics of the Christian worldview off at the pass. This posting comes in the shadows of a book which he recently published called What’s Your Worldview: An Interactive Approach to Life’s Big Questions, which I have not read (and probably won’t). (The book’s Amazon page can be found here; there are loads of reviews praising the book, but it appears that most if not all of them are coming from folks who are already deeply committed to the Christian confessional investment.)

Unfortunately, as seems to be trending with much of what I’ve seen from Anderson lately, his counterpoints to these objections strike me as quite superficial, as though perhaps he were “dumbing down” his apologetic routine in order to reach a wider audience. It’s like watching Bjork transform herself into Britney Spears – going from something that’s at least somewhat original and fresh to a stale lifelessness packaged for mass consumption by the bubble-gummers. In the past Anderson appeared to be striving to achieve at least somewhat scholarly standards. But his recent offerings of pop pieces suggest that he’s opting for a different route in his apologetic approach. It may be that he’s trying to balance two different roles, but typically once one starts to compromise his standards, everything follows suit.

Now when I saw the title of the article – “I Reject Christianity Because _______________” – and even before I read it, my initial response to this was quite simple: I reject Christianity because it’s not true. And this is consistent for me: as an adult thinker, I do not knowingly accept claims or positions that are not true.

The Moral Implications of Belief in an Afterlife

If someone truly believes that life continues after death, how would this affect his choices and actions in life? We die, but our lives go on somewhere else. In fact, this “somewhere else” is characterized as a supremely better place. Believers actually want to go to this “somewhere else” they imagine awaiting them beyond the grave.

There’s a profound, unmistakable contrast between a worldview which does not indulge fantasies about an afterlife, and those which do. Obviously there’s the orientation towards facts to be consider: a worldview informed by facts which we discover by looking outward at reality and identify by means of an objective process, will recognize that life is biological in nature and that consciousness is an attribute of some biological organism, and consequently find no evidence for the notion that consciousness survives the death of an organism possessing it.

Examining Stefan's Presuppositionalism

StefanMach (to whom I shall again refer as Stefan going forward) has left a series of comments responding to my blog A Reply to Stefan on Induction and Deduction. Stefan is clearly sympathetic to presuppositionalism, though he seems to be wary of Greg Bahnsen, which is curious in itself.

Below I reply to Stefan’s comments.

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part I: Intro and the Nature of Truth

Christian apologist Dustin Segers (remember him?) recently posted an entry on his blog in which he tells about his experiences at something called the “Reason Rally.” Segers used the words ‘sophisticated’ and ‘blasphemous’ to describe what he witnessed at the event, which he calls “an opportunity to trash religion in general and Christianity specifically.” I’m guessing any non-religious assembly must by its very nature be guilty of this particularly nefarious misdeed. Believers gather on a weekly basis to condemn non-believers and fancy themselves as numbering among “the chosen,” but when non-believers gather at an annual meet open to all comers, it’s specifically intended to “trash” Christianity.

RazorsKiss on the Christian God as the Basis of Knowledge – Part 6: RK on the Christian’s “Certainty”

In the opening statement of his debate with Mitch LeBlanc,Christian apologist “RazorsKiss” (“RK” hereafter) claimed that

Christians have the privilege of certainty

which implies that no one else does.

But privileges can be taken away.

Consequently, Christians cannot know with certainty when they can enjoy this "privilege of certainty," and when they cannot. And given their worldview’s premises, the recognition of the Christian's inherent uncertainty on this matter is accurate.

This is because Christians affirm the existence of a supernatural consciousness which can alter the nature of any thing which exists in the universe at any time, without seeking the prior approval of believers before doing so. (What believer would say that his god needs his approval to do anything?)

In essence, what RK calls “certainty” is based on proclamations inserted into the mouth of a storybook character. But this can only undermine his profession of certainty, not only psychologically, but also philosophically, since its basis (even on Christianity’s own premises) is beyond the reach of the believer’s epistemological grasp.

That the nature of this “certainty” is at best utterly fleeting and elusive for the believer, is especially true given the context in which RK informs his claim to certainty, namely that this is

a certainty based on the most fundamental guarantor of truth.

That “fundamental guarantor of truth,” which, on RK’s worldview, can only mean the Christian god, is no "guarantor" of certainty for the believer at all.

The granddaddy of presuppositionalism, Cornelius Van Til himself, makes this clear when he writes:

God may at any time take one fact and set it into new relation to created law. That is, there is no inherent reason in the facts or laws themselves why this should not be done. It is this sort of conception of the relation of facts and laws, of the temporal one and many, imbedded as it is in the idea of God in which we profess to believe, that we need in order to make room for miracles. And miracles are at the heart of the Christian position. (The Defense of the Faith, p. 27)

Because Christians affirm belief in an omnipotent supernatural being which can do what Van Til claims here, they cannot bank on any fact with any certainty, for unless they are themselves omniscient (which would make them “God,” and there can be only one “God”), they cannot know if or when their god might take any fact and “set it into new relation to created law.” The believer's god is supposed to have a will of its own, independent of the believer's own will. So how can the believer know if or when his god is going to cause another miracle to take place, especially if he relies on "divine revelation" (i.e., information which his god chooses to distribute to the believer) for all his knowledge?

For instance, a believer cannot be certain that the water he is drinking won’t suddenly be turned into wine the instant he puts a glass of water to his lips.

Then again, on Van Til’s view, he might not even notice that what he thought was water was turned into wine, because the facts pertaining to his perception of such things have been “set into new relation to created law.” He may be drinking wine and not know it!

The believer cannot assume that this is a matter of deception, since according to Van Til it would merely be a matter of individual facts being “set into new relation to created law.”

Since the Christian god is under no obligation to its creatures, it has no obligation to give believers advance notice that any facts are about to be “set into new relation to created law.”

So the Christian’s protestation that his god would not deliberately "deceive" him in such a manner, would be misdirected.

Moreover, protests from apologists that their god is “rational” and therefore will not change things willy-nilly, miss the point of Christianity’s own theological teachings.

If one affirms the existence of such a being, why suppose that it would be irrational for it to change water into wine? Blank out.

Was it irrational for Jesus to turn water into wine at the wedding at Cana (cf. John 2:2-11)?

If the Christian affirms that it was not rational for Jesus to change water into wine, then he’s already admitting that he worships an irrational deity anyway.

On the other hand, if the Christian affirms that it was in fact "rational" for Jesus to turn water into wine, then such protests are inapplicable. Whatever Jesus does, is "rational" because Jesus does it. If Jesus decides that a car should blow up and destroy human lives, it is "rational" simply because Jesus decides this. If instead of turning water into wine, Jesus decides that a hurricane should blow into town and take 1836 or more lives, would the believer call Jesus' decision "irrational"?

I trow not.

Similarly, if the believer affirms that Jesus’ miraculous transformation of water into wine was rational at the wedding at Cana, then why suppose it would be irrational for Jesus to do this or anything else on other occasions?

Believers are caught in a pickle of their own doing here, and so long as they remain committed to Christianity’s teachings, they’re simply stuck on this one.

So while RK may think that “Christians have the privilege of certainty,” it’s clear that their worldview does not grant them any epistemic right to certainty whatsoever (they get only "privilege"). They affirm “certainty” in word only, with no objective support for their claim to certainty at all.

Is this a reliable basis for epistemology?

If course it isn't.

by Dawson Bethrick

RazorsKiss on the Christian God as the Basis of Knowledge – Part 3: RK’s “No Brute Facts” Claim

In the section of his opening statement titled “Proper Epistemology,” RK basically just describes his position as opposed to presenting a reasoned defense for it. After reviewing his positional statement numerous times, I found no attempt to validate his overall position with argument. Instead of presenting an argument for the view that the Christian god is the basis of knowledge, RK preferred simply to assert it as a component of two heavily laden confessional affirmations which he characterized as “axiomatic, interrelated foundations” which, upon examination, turn out not to be axiomatic in the least.

The failure to provide an argument for various assertions he makes in his opening statement, is a trait common to much of what RK affirms. For instance, he makes the following statements about “facts”:

there are no brute facts. Facts are not neutral entities, and they cannot be interpreted in a neutral fashion. This is because facts can only exist in relation to other facts; further, without exception these are interpreted with reference to still other facts.

Here is a series of claims about facts which RK makes but does not seek to establish by means of argument. Each statement which RK makes here is in need of support, and neither statement seems to follow necessarily from any of the others.

RK makes the universally negative claim that “there are no brute facts.” How does he support this? He does so by asserting that “facts can only exist in relation to other facts.” How does RK know this? He does not explain. This is logically equivalent to saying that there is no fact anywhere which does not exist in relation to other facts. While universally negative claims are notoriously difficult to establish with certainty, even if we accept this to be the case (and RK does not demonstrate this, he only asserts it), how does it follow from this that “there are no brute facts”? RK does not explain this either. Why can it not be the case that “facts can only exist in relation to other facts,” but some of those facts are “brute” in nature? The issue here seems to be one of definitions, but RK does not state his definitions. What exactly is a “brute fact” as RK understands it? It may be the case that “there are no brute facts,” but the reason which RK offers in support of this seems insufficient to rule out their existence. It may even be the case that I would agree that “there are no brute facts,” but only on premises integral to my worldview, and RK has already made it clear in no uncertain terms that he would reject my worldview. Given RK’s claims to exclusivity of Christianity and the lines he has drawn in the sand against any non-Christian position, I would expect that my own reasoning for rejecting the notion of “brute facts” would fail to muster with RK’s position.

To understand RK’s position, we must know what he means by “brute fact.” For a specifically presuppositionalist understanding of what a “brute fact” is, I consulted John Frame’s A Van Til Glossary, which, curiously, offers two definitions for this expression:

(1) (in VT) fact that is uninterpreted (by God, man, or both) and therefore the basis of all interpretation; (2) objective fact: fact not dependent on what man thinks about it.

Since RK himself seems to be a presuppositionalist, I’m willing to suppose that he would endorse the definitions of “brute fact” which Frame offers here. The question becomes then, since Frame offers two definitions for this term: which definition does RK have in mind?

If by “brute fact” RK means the second of these two definitions (“objective fact”), then I’d say RK is in big trouble here. This would essentially be affirming that all facts are subjective. Indeed, since Christianity holds that all facts are created by an act of supernatural consciousness (cf. Van Til, who claims that “God is the creator of every fact” [Christian Theistic Evidences, p. 88; quoted in Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 378]), then I would agree that this would accurately describe the Christian (and thus RK’s) view of facts. According to such a view, facts are dependent upon a knowing subject and conform to its will. In other words, on this view, facts are subjective. This would mean that any “fact” which RK cites on behalf of defending his worldview would be subjective in nature, and thus as unstable as a straw hut in a Category 5 hurricane. Moreover, if RK holds it to be a fact that “there are no brute facts,” then this “fact” itself would be subjective. So why should anyone accept it as an objectively reliable statement about reality? Blank out.

On the other hand, if by “brute fact” RK means the first of these definitions (i.e., “uninterpreted” fact which serves as “the basis of all interpretation”), then we need to understand what is meant by the term “interpretation,” since it is used here in a rather idiosyncratic manner (e.g., we interpret statements, symbols, language, bodily gestures, etc. rather than facts per se). Here John Frame has something noteworthy to add:

To my knowledge, Van Til never defines “interpretation,” but I gather he uses the term fairly broadly to describe all of a person’s activity in his attempts to understand the world. (Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, p. 193)

Van Til used the term “interpretation” with very high frequency in his writings. It seems inexplicable if what Frame says here is true, that “Van Til never defines ‘interpretation’,” given not only his frequent use of the term, but also given Van Til’s own rhetorical question:

Is not the important thing that Christian meanings be contrasted with non-Christian meanings? (The Defense of the Faith, p. 23n.1)

At any rate, if “interpretation” denotes “all of a person’s activity in his attempts to understand the world,” and “brute facts” are facts which are “uninterpreted,” then “brute facts” would be facts which have not (yet) been processed by “all of a person’s activity in his attempts to understand the world.” Thus RK’s denial of the existence of “brute facts” so conceived would also be problematic, for it essentially denies that facts could exist independent of “a person’s activity in his attempts to understand the world.” This assessment is consistent with Frame’s first definition of “brute fact,” which he attributes to Van Til, and which posits “brute fact” as “the basis of all interpretation.” Thus RK’s denial of the existence of “brute facts” again denies the objectivity of facts, and essentially rules out any factual “basis of all interpretation.” If facts are not the basis of one’s interpretation, what is? Feelings? Wishes? Likes or dislikes?

The problem is even deeper for RK, for not only does he fail to follow through with anything approaching a solid defense of his claim that “there are no brute facts,” this claim, on either definition of “brute fact,” essentially amounts to claiming that there is no factual objectivity whatsoever. Either the claim “there are no brute facts” outright denies the existence of objective facts (Frame’s definition (2)), or it denies the existence of facts which exist independent of cognitive activity (which is just another way of denying the existence of objective facts).

On the presuppositionalist view, facts are, in the final analysis, presumably “interpreted” for all eternity, not things which are discovered by consciousness. This basically entails the general view that any facts which man discovers, were already known (“interpreted”) by a supernatural consciousness. So RK’s “no brute facts” claim essentially follows from the claim that the Christian god is omniscient (i.e., the Christian god’s omniscience necessitates the view that “there are no brute facts”), as opposed to a conclusion reached through an inductive investigation into the nature of facts themselves. So this is not a validation of the claim, but rather an indication of how it follows as a consequence of more fundamental religious commitments, in spite of the philosophical problems it generates for the Christian position. What is fundamental in such a case is a religious confession of faith rather than a factual basis, which is denied by the “no brute facts” claim itself.

It is not clear why RK felt the need to affirm such a self-discrediting position, for it is unclear how it ties to any positive argument he may be trying to make on behalf of the claim that “the Triune God of the Scriptures” is “the basis for knowledge.” Then again, as indicated above, I did not find any positive argument on behalf of this claim, which he elected to defend by taking the affirmative in the debate.

RK did say that “knowledge is interrelated” and that “facts cannot be interpreted outside of your epistemology,” but he nowhere explains why it must be the case that “there are no brute facts” for these points to be true. Certainly, rational knowledge is interrelated, since on the standard of rationality (where “rationality” is the commitment to reason as one’s only means of knowledge and only guide to action), new knowledge must be integrated without contradiction into the total sum of one’s knowledge. Also, one needs an epistemology (namely reason, as opposed to faith in revelations from invisible magic beings) according to which he can perform such an activity. But this does not in any way require that facts be subjective in nature, as RK’s denial of the existence of “brute facts” seems to entail. Facts can certainly be objective (i.e., have the identity they have independent of the cognitive activity of a knowing subject), and still be identified and integrated by a rational process into the sum of one’s knowledge without contradiction, so long as one employs an objective method. But if there are no objective facts, as RK’s position requires, then all bets are off.

RK continues, saying that “as philosophers, we have to consider the meaning of the facts – or the concepts – we examine.” RK seems confused here. Meaning is a property of concepts, not of independently existing concretes. For instance, one does not pick up a rock and say it has “meaning” of its own. Only in the context of other facts can we begin to speak of meaning with reference to a specific concrete. For instance, if a certain kind of igneous rock were discovered under several strata of sandstone, an inference could be made about a period of volcanic activity. But strictly speaking, meaning is the domain of concepts. So while I agree that “meanings are inseparable from our epistemological foundation,” since a rational epistemology is conceptual in nature and meaning is a property of concepts, RK fails to show how this requires the existence of his god, or how it relates to such a demonstration, which he had pledged to deliver in his debate. As I indicated in my previous posting, the primacy of existence and the objective theory of concepts are the fundamentals needed for such cognitive operations.

RK states that “we judge all facts through the ‘prism of our epistemology’,” which is true if we have a unified, unfragmented epistemology and we guide our thinking consistently according to that epistemology. The question at this point, however, is: does this “prism of epistemology” have an objective or subjective basis? An epistemology which is subordinated to theistic affirmations is going to be subjective in nature. This is because theism entails enshrinement of an imaginary consciousness on which everything in the universe depends and to whose will everything conforms. As we saw above, Christianity teaches that all facts are created by a deity by means of conscious intentions, which means: the subject in the subject-object relationship holds primacy over its objects. This is the very essence of subjectivism, and it lies at the heart of theism as such. Moreover, since no one can consistently employ a subjective epistemology and survive very long, a theist is not going to operate on the basis of a unified, unfragmented epistemology. Rather, he’s going to have a mixed epistemology, which ultimately means that he will not be able to defend any position consistently. It also means that, in order to live in this world, the theist has no alternative but to borrow from the this-worldly epistemology of a rational (and therefore non-theistic) worldview which he has verbally rejected.

By contrast, an epistemology which is founded explicitly on the primacy of existence (i.e., the view that the objects of consciousness exist and are what they are independent of the conscious activity of the subject) and which benefits from the objective theory of concepts (as explained in Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology), then he has the makings of a truly objective epistemology, one which allows him to recognize the objective nature of facts and enables him to identify and integrate them into the sum of his knowledge in an objective manner to produce a non-contradictory whole, which he can confidently and legitimately call “knowledge.” Any compromise of either of these two components – the primacy of existence and the objective theory of concepts – will result in a system which invites the arbitrary and inclines its users to confuse what they imagine with what is real.

For further discussion of the inherent antithesis between theism and Objectivism on the nature of facts, see my blog Rival Philosophies of Fact.

by Dawson Bethrick

The Concept of "Chance": Right and Wrong Uses

Quite often, the only power that an apologetic argument has is the degree to which it denigrates rival positions. And even then, such power is merely vicarious, in that it sustains itself on the intellectual default of its practitioners and unwitting bystanders. The zeal to denigrate a rival position often deteriorates into the practice of speaking for one’s opponents and inserting words into their mouths in an effort to discredit their position at all costs. The result of course is nothing more grandiose than a mere straw man.


The Supposed Problem

A case in point is the supposition that non-belief in the Christian god logically entails the affirmation that “chance” rules the day. In the presuppositionalist literature, the view that non-believers monolithically assume a “universe of chance” is so commonplace that adherents to this school of apologetics probably think it is incontestably true. It’s not. The notion of a “universe of chance” is certainly condemnable, but not for the mystical reasons for which Christian apologists denounce it. Moreover, that the universe is governed by “chance,” is not the testimony of every non-believer. Nor does logical consistency require it. One does not need to believe in any god in order to consistently avoid the notion that the universe is a “universe of chance.” In fact, quite the opposite is the case.

But you wouldn’t know this from reading any texts by presuppositionalists. Not only is the view that non-believers must assume a “universe of chance” widely prevalent in their writings, that non-believers allegedly assume such a universe is a fundamental aspect of their defense of Christianity through antithesis, that is: through making all alternatives to Christianity appear to be unacceptable, Christianity prevails by default. If non-Christian worldviews (especially those which reject any form of theism altogether) ultimately reduce to the affirmation of a “universe of chance,” then why shouldn’t a more sober-headed understanding of reality be preferred?


The Exhibits

Let’s take a look at some examples and see what the presuppositionalists are saying.

Bahnsen writes:

As always, the trouble for the unbeliever is that in denying the existence of God he is asserting chance as the ultimate backdrop of the universe. (Pushing the Antithesis, pp. 199-200)

Is that right? If I deny the existence of the Christian god, I am at the same time “asserting chance as the ultimate backdrop of the universe”? How does this follow?

Clearly what Bahnsen assumes here is an either-or viewpoint: either one believes that the Christian god exists and created everything in the universe through its conscious actions, or “he is asserting chance as the ultimate backdrop of the universe.”

It’s clear that the option which Bahnsen prefers (that his god created everything in the universe through conscious actions) assumes the primacy of consciousness, for it inherently grants power to conscious actions over its objects. But the opposite of this view is the primacy of existence. Does the primacy of existence entail or logically lead to the view that “chance” is “the ultimate backdrop of the universe”? No, it does not. On the basis of the primacy of existence, the universe (properly understood as the totality of everything which exists) is ultimate. On the primacy of existence, there is no “backdrop” behind the universe in the first place.

So it appears we’re dealing with a false alternative here, both suspiciously pointing to the primacy of consciousness metaphysics.

And for Bahnsen, “chance” is some really bad stuff:

Chance destroys the very possibility of meaning and significance, taking with it the notion of dignity. (Pushing the Antithesis, p. 226)

Elsewhere Bahnsen tells us that “chance” also destroys the conceptual activity of counting:

Counting involves an abstract concept of law, universals, or order – which contradicts the unbeliever’s view of the universe as a random or chance realm of material particulars. (Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 42n.18)

You get the idea. “Chance” is a toxic substance which contaminates all non-believing thought. That’s what we’re supposed to believe.


Defining “Chance”

What is this thing which presuppositionalists call “chance”? Is there some sweet moment where they finally identify what they’re talking about?

There is indeed!

In his Van Til Glossary, John Frame tells us that by ‘chance’ presuppositionalists apparently mean

Events that occur without cause or reason.

So now we have a definition of what they’re talking about.


A Sudden Problem?

Oddly, however, Cornelius Van Til – the granddaddy of this school of apologetics – emphatically announces that:

About chance no manner of assertion can be made. (The Defense of the Faith, p. 127)

It seems that Van Til just made an assertion about something about which he says “no manner of assertion can be made.” It’s even worse for John Frame, who actually gives a definition for ‘chance’ above. If it were truly the case that “no assertion can be made” about ‘chance’, Frame’s definition would not be possible. You cannot define something about which “no assertion can be made,” for the definition itself would be an assertion about it. In fact, if what Van Til says were true, we could have no idea of what he’s talking about when he says that “no manner of assertion can be made” about something.

It seems that presuppositionalists need to get their act together. Indeed, Van Til’s stipulation about ‘chance’ is quoted in Bahnsen’s book Pushing the Antithesis (p. 208), with no acknowledgement of the contradictory nature of such a statement. Perhaps it just slipped by him?


Exploring the Problem as Presuppositionalism Views It

Moving on, Bahnsen tells us why “chance” is such a problem:

In a chance universe, all particular facts would be random, have no classifiable identity, bear no pre-determined order or relation, and thus be unintelligible to man’s mind. (Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 38n.10)

If it appears that Bahnsen is mixing metaphysics here, you’re right. By setting up the problem in the manner that Bahnsen does here, he is attempting to blur a fundamental distinction by advancing a package-deal cast in an either-or struggle. “Random” here is pitted expressly against “pre-determined order,” which of course implies a ruling consciousness which does the pre-determining. The implication here is (i) either facts are arranged according to some “pre-determined order” (and therefore not “random”) and therefore have “classifiable identity” and consequently are not “unintelligible to man’s mind,” or (ii) they are “random” and “have no classifiable identity” and consequently “unintelligible to man’s mind.” The resulting dichotomy seeks to compel thinkers to accept the need for a ruling consciousness which “accounts for” the “pre-determined order” allegedly necessary for facts to have identity and be intelligible as they reject the alternative which renders facts “unintelligible to man’s mind.”

Here is where Bahnsen is in bad need of some serious premise-checking. The question he should have been asking is whether facts are objective (i.e., exist independent of anyone’s conscious intentions) or subjective (i.e., ultimately dependent on someone’s conscious intentions). But this would remove the obscurity which is so vital to Bahnsen’s apologetic strategy. If facts are objective, then this would mean that they are what they are (i.e., have identity) independent of consciousness, which would fall far short of implicating theism as the proper philosophical basis for the intelligibility of facts. To imply theism, Bahnsen needs the element which he did stipulate, namely “pre-determined order,” which of course suggests a ruling consciousness which a consciousness capable of pre-determining the nature of facts and responsible for the identity which the facts actually possess. But this would entail that facts are in the final analysis subjective, i.e., ultimately dependent upon a form of consciousness.

As a result, Bahnsen is essentially package-dealing “classifiable identity” with the primacy of consciousness metaphysics. This package-deal is then pitted in a false dichotomy against a rival position, namely “a chance universe,” which – given its alleged commitment to facts having “no classifiable identity” and being “unintelligible to man’s mind” – is to be rejected. Bahnsen’s package-deal, then, intends to prevail by default, implicating theism as the only paradigm in which facts could have “classifiable identity” and thus be “intelligible to man’s mind.”

But as I have pointed out elsewhere (e.g., here), identity is concurrent with the objective fact of existence. Even more, the law of identity necessarily implies the primacy of existence. To exist is to be something (identity), and this fact obtains independent of consciousness. The recognition that objects (including the facts which we discover in the world) have identity is wholly incompatible with the metaphysical basis of Bahnsen’s theism, namely the primacy of consciousness. In fact, it is on the basis of Bahnsen’s theism that facts would ultimately be subject to the whims of a supernatural consciousness (which is not constrained by any external limitations), and what could be more “random” than this? As Van Til pointed out:

God may at any time take one fact and set it into new relation to created law. That is, there is no inherent reason in the facts or laws themselves why this should not be done. It is this sort of conception of the relation of facts and laws, of the temporal one and many, imbedded as it is in the idea of God in which we profess to believe, that we need in order to make room for miracles. And miracles are at the heart of the Christian position. (The Defense of the Faith, p. 27)

On the Christian position, then, which Bahnsen is seeking to validate, facts must be subordinate to conscious intentions. In other words, some form of consciousness must hold metaphysical primacy over the facts in order for them to be under such control. This is the subjective theory of facts: the facts are what they are only because some conscious subject has determined (or “pre-determined”) them to be what they are. And given the immense leeway which Van Til claims on behalf of his god’s sovereignty over facts, any fact which you or I may be regarding could be changed (“set into new relation to created law”) at any moment. Certainly Van Til & co. do not think their god needs our prior approval, or to provide us with advance notification, in order to set any fact “into new relation to created law.” So from man’s perspective, the facts couldn’t be anything other than utterly random, for they are subject to divine whim. And we know that this is whim because “there are no limitations on [the Christian god’s] knowledge, power, or presence” (John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, p. 101), and the laws of logic are not “principles outside of God to which He must measure up” (Bahnsen, Pushing the Antithesis, p. 210). And even to the extent that this god supposedly “observes the laws of logic,” it is “not because there are laws ‘above’ him to which he must conform, but because he is by nature a logical person” (Frame, Op. cit., p. 158). But even here we find the disclaimer that this refers to “God’s own logic, which may not be identical to any humanly devised logical system” (Ibid.). So even though this god “observes the laws of logic,” it could be an altogether different type of “logic” than what you and I might have in mind; it’s “God’s own logic.” Which can only mean: all bets are off. Divine whim is the ultimate governing factor in determining (“pre-determining”) what the facts and their “relation to created law” may happen to be. As Psalms 115:3 confirms: “our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”

So ironically, where Bahnsen carries on as if he were concerned about preserving facts from “randomness” and having “no classifiable identity,” the metaphysical position to which he wants to associate facts relegates them to precisely this by making them subject to a supernatural consciousness which “does whatever He pleases.”

So the solution to the “problem” which apparently worries Bahnsen, is adherence to the primacy of existence metaphysics. This entails the axioms of existence, identity and consciousness in their proper relationship. Since existence exists independent of consciousness, and to exist is to be something specific (i.e., to have identity), facts are what they are independent of consciousness. This means they have identity, this means they are not “unintelligible to man’s mind.” Moreover, this does not entail that facts are “random” or the product of “chance” or that we live in “a chance universe.” More on this will be brought out below.

It is through such gimmicks as those we’ve seen above (package-deals, false dichotomies, etc.) that presuppositional apologists insinuate that the assumption of what they call a “chance universe” is a corollary of rejecting the view that the universe was created and is ruled by a supernatural consciousness. Reject the Christian god, and you’re stuck with “a chance universe.” Apparently we are to think this consequence results automatically, as Van Til explains:

In every non-Christian concept of reality brute facts or chance plays a basic role. This is so because any one who does not hold to God’s counsel as being man’s ultimate environment has no alternative but to assume or assert that chance is ultimate. Chance is simply the metaphysical correlative of the idea of the autonomous man. (The Defense of the Faith, p. 140)

By “autonomous man” Van Til essentially has in mind any human being (male or female) who has not surrendered his mind to the dictates of Christian god-belief. So even though “chance” is something about which “no manner of assertion can be made,” it’s clear that Van Til conceives of “chance” as a “metaphysical correlative” of the non-believer’s mindset. Apparently this means some kind of ontological corollary to non-belief in the Christian god in which “chance” is some kind of power, force or elemental phenomenon responsible for the existence and nature of the universe. The important point to note here is that, for Van Til (and apparently for other presuppositionalists cited as well), “chance” is metaphysical. And if we consider John Frame’s definition (“events that occur without cause or reason”), “chance” seems to be understood by these writers as some kind of metaphysical alternative to causality. This will become relevant in my criticism below.

This supposed bond between “autonomous man” and “a chance universe” apparently has quite a pedigree. Van Til traces this fatal association back to the myth of Adam:

When Adam, for all men, refused to take God’s prediction of punishment for disobedience seriously, he virtually said that the facts and laws of the universe are not under God’s control but operate by virtue of Chance. This is the ultimate and utter irrationalism. (The Defense of the Faith, 1st ed., p. 237; quoted in Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 392)

Again we find that presuppositionalism’s denigration of non-Christian worldviews trades on a false dichotomy: either the universe was created by a conscious being and everything which takes place within it is ruled by a conscious being’s intentions (cf. “God’s thoughts make the world what it is and determine what happens” – Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 243), or it is a product of “chance” and every “event” which takes place within it “occur[s] without cause or reason.” We find this false dichotomy affirmed over and over, in one manner or another, perhaps on the hope that readers will accept it as true uncritically.

The reason why these are the only options considered, is that by limiting the alternative to these two options the apologist can give his preferred position the appearance of having the intellectual advantage. Again, the tactic here is to camouflage the Christian position as the more sensible while describing the only alternative considered in so denigrating a manner that no one would want to be associated with it. Persuasion, not proof, seems to be the goal behind such measures. As validation of this analysis, we only need to recognize that, if Christianity really did have an intellectual advantage, such arbitrary dichotomies would not be needed. And so far, we’re told that these are the only two alternatives available. I’ve seen no argument which limits our options to the two alternatives considered by Bahnsen & co., and as my above analysis demonstrated, the presuppositionalists’ preferred alternative lands them right back into the randomness which they feign to despise.

But the charade continues. For instance, as “marks of the natural man in his attitude toward the interpretation of the facts (events) of the world,” Van Til listed the following:

The facts of man’s environment are not created or controlled by the providence of God. They are brute facts, uninterpretated and ultimately irrational. The universe is a Chance controlled universe. (The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture, quoted in Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p.310)

Again, we see only two alternatives in play here: either the universe was created by the Christian god and “the facts of man’s environment” are “controlled by the providence of God,” or “the universe is a Chance controlled universe.” Note again that “chance” here is used to denote some otherwise unidentified metaphysical phenomenon which somehow has the power to “control” the universe. The alternative to theism described here is apparently intended to give the reader the impression of an unstoppable chaotic force behind a wall of knobs, switches and dials randomly generating events around the universe and frantically manipulating the objects within it. Van Til must have imagined that this is what non-Christians believe about the universe.

But the presumption of the primacy of consciousness underlying the Christian alternative which presuppositionalism wholeheartedly endorses is not hard to spot. Observe the following statement by Bahnsen, in which the same false dichotomy is being reiterated:

In the non-Christian outlook, the space-time universe exists and is intelligible apart from God; whatever happens is random, and facts are not preinterpreted, related, or controlled by a personal mind. (Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 313)

It is true that the universe is intelligible, and if it’s the case that the presuppositionalist’s god does not exist to make it so, then the presuppositionalist needs to get over it. However, it does not follow from the fact that the Christian god is an irrational fantasy that “whatever happens is random.” Nor do facts need to be “preinterpreted, related, or controlled by a personal mind” in order to be causal as opposed to “random” (or “chance-controlled,” which denies causality). The universe is the sum total of all that exists, and it is a fact that it exists. As such, it would commit the fallacy of the stolen concept to affirm that the universe is a product of something prior to it. To suppose that the universe is a product of something prior to it, is to affirm the existence of this something prior, but since the concept ‘universe’ includes everything which exists, one would essentially be affirming the existence of something which exists outside the sum total of everything which exists. This is the case even if one wants to assert, as Christians do, the existence of some “personal mind” prior to the universe, a consciousness which allegedly created the universe and which "controls whatsoever comes to pass" (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 160; italics added). It is in this way that affirming the existence of the Christian god also commits the fallacy of the stolen concept, since this is the fundamental error of any position which ultimately rests on the primacy of consciousness metaphysics.

So just as we rightfully begin with the fact that existence exists as an irreducible primary, we begin with the existence of the universe by extension.

Whether one holds to the primacy of existence (the objective view of reality) or the primacy of consciousness (the subjective view of reality), has a dramatic impact on his understanding of the nature of facts (for further discussion on the nature of facts, see my Rival Philosophies of Fact). On the basis of the primacy of existence, the facts do not conform to anyone’s conscious intentions. Wishing, emoting, evading, fantasizing and pouting will not alter them. On the basis of the primacy of consciousness, however, facts do ultimately conform to someone’s consciousness, and consequently can be altered by the wishing, imagining, pleasure and mood swings of the ruling consciousness. It is because Christianity rests on the primacy of consciousness that its adherents cannot consistently reject the view that wishing makes it so.

Failing to grasp this distinction, however, Van Til taught his students that non-Christians, by virtue of their non-Christian conception of the world, “assume the idea of brute fact in metaphysics” (The Defense of the Faith, p.147). Here we have another connotation-rich description which is supposed to make readers suspicious of non-Christian philosophies before examining them. Bahnsen explains “the idea of brute fact in metaphysics” as:

the view that there is no plan or purpose for events, and that the facts have no necessary relationship to each other and require no interpretive context to be known and understood; everything happens randomly, “by chance.” (Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 268n.20)

Here we see again another package-deal being foisted on us by means of yet another false dichotomy. By “the view that there is no plan or purpose for events,” Bahnsen does not allow for the distinction between the metaphysically given and the man-made. There are in fact some events which are the result of human initiation (such the production of an automobile in a factory) which are undeniably purposeful and executed according to a plan. On the other hand, there are events which are clearly not the result of human initiation, such as the sprouting of a weed on some abandoned patch of land. To say that there is “planning” behind this is nonsensical, but according to Bahnsen’s worldview there is a supernatural consciousness worthy of worship which busies itself planning such things.

But where Bahnsen errs is in supposing that the view that the sprouting of a weed in an abandoned patch of land is not the result of planning logically entails the view that such events happen causelessly (since he says it “happens… ‘by chance’,” and “chance” as we saw above denotes “events which occur without cause or reason”). Yes, there is a cause for the weed’s sprouting; it did not sprout “by chance” if “by chance” essentially means “without cause.” The either-or of Bahnsen’s false dichotomy here essentially states that either everything happens according to some cosmic plan, or it happens without any cause whatsoever. I see no reason whatsoever to accept such a view, and good reasons to reject it (since activity like a weed sprouting out of the ground definitely has a cause even if it is not “planned” by some supervising mind).

Now it should be clear that it is utterly misrepresentative for presuppositional apologetics to characterize non-Christian worldviews as necessarily assuming or unable to consistently avoid a “universe of chance” as Bahnsen & co. describe it here. Given Frame’s definition of “chance,” a “universe of chance” would be a universe in which the “events that occur” within it “occur without cause or reason.” While there may be non-Christians here or there who might affirm something as bizarre as this, I can’t say I’ve ever encountered any myself, and I know for a fact that Objectivism neither teaches this nor affirm positions which inevitably lead to this view. Moreover, in the case of those occasional non-theists who are quoted affirming that things in the universe happened “by chance” (Bahnsen quotes a few examples on pp. 206-207 of Pushing the Antithesis), I suspect that if you asked them for clarification, they would not deny causation in the activities they speak about. At any rate, I see no reason why one would need to, or why denying Christianity entails denying causality or adopting the “chance universe” view which Bahnsen has described so vividly for us.


Cutting Both Ways

Christians often say that, if the universe was not created by a supernatural being (preferably by the one which they worship), then it exists “by chance,” as a “random” fluke, and that it is therefore “irrational.” Not only does this kind of claim misappropriate the concept of rationality (the concept ‘rationality’ applies to actions, including thought, chosen by a consciousness capable of conceptual thought, not to sticks and stones, water droplets or asteroid belts), it can safely be said that if it is valid for the Christian to speak for the non-Christian’s position in this manner, there’s no reason why the non-Christian cannot do likewise. “God is uncaused and eternally self-existent,” explains Bahnsen. “There is nothing prior to God accounting for His origin and existence” (Pushing the Antithesis, p. 60). Like the non-Christian, the Christian too begins with something that was not created by a supernatural (or any other) being. So just as the non-Christian is said essentially to hold that the universe exists “by chance” and is thus “irrational,” so too must the Christian believe that his god exists “by chance” and is thus “irrational.”

And it wouldn’t stop there. The “chance-boundedness” of theism turns up all over the place. For instance, when Christians say that their god is “rational,” it must be “just by chance” that it’s rational; when Christians say that the laws of logic “reflect” the nature of the Christian god, it must be “just by chance” that they do this; when they say that the Christian god chose to save them from their sins, it must be “just by chance” that the Christian god chose to do this. And so on.


A Two-fold Correction

All of these characterizations of non-Christian positions err in two significant ways:

1) They treat the concept ‘chance’ as if it were a metaphysical concept (it’s not, ‘chance’ is an epistemological concept), and

2) They supppress the fact that one is not committed to denying the causality of events simply because he rejects either Christian god-belief or the metaphysical subjectivism at the basis of the Christian religion.

Let’s examine these two points in detail.

First, it is important to notice how presuppositionalists are using the concept ‘chance’ in their characterizations of non-Christian worldviews. As Van Til makes it clear above, he is using “chance” to refer to some metaphysical phenomenon, as if it were a type of force, energy, or substance controlling the universe and the activity which takes place within it. I know of no such phenomenon which somehow causes events to happen “without cause” (as Frame’s definition requires). Rather, ‘chance’ is an epistemological concept which is used to indicate a probability assessment, or that the series of causes leading up to an action or set of actions is unknown or only partially known. Both of these are epistemological concerns, not metaphysical forces acting “behind the scenes” cancelling out the law of causality.

Say for instance, that I was walking along a sidewalk one day and “by chance” a twenty dollar bill happened to be blowing across my path just as I came upon it. (This actually happened to me in 2004.) Had the bank note blown by 15 seconds earlier or five seconds later, I probably would not have seen it. I might say that this happened “by chance” because I am personally unaware of where the twenty came from, how long it was rolling around on the street, what snags it might have encountered prior it to being blown into my range of vision, etc. But surely I am not denying the fact that certain causes culminated in my encounter with it. By saying that I came upon the bill “by chance,” I am not invoking some metaphysical alternative to causality, such that Frame’s definition and the presuppositionalists’ characterizations could at all be said to apply. Nor does saying that this one event happened “by chance” suggest that we live in “a chance universe” in which all “events… occur without cause or reason.” In no way am I denying the law of causality by referring to this incident as a “chance” occasion.

This leads to the second point. It is important also to notice that disbelief in the Christian god or other supernatural being which allegedly created the universe and “controls whatsoever comes to pass” (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 160), does not in any way commit a person to the belief that the universe is “controlled by chance,” that “events… occur without cause,” etc. The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. Since to exist is to be something specific, action – since it also exists – also has identity. The concept of causality is based on the recognition that an entity’s actions necessarily depend on the nature of the entity performing them. There’s no need to suppose that a god is needed to be responsible for this arrangement, for the same law would necessarily apply to any god proposed to exist. The proof for this is the fact that such proposals by their nature assume the very relationship which the law of causality identifies between the god it proposes and the actions it allegedly performed to make the objects we perceive act as they do. Theistic proposals ignore this, thus committing themselves to a series of stolen concepts. Causality has its basis in existence, which is both metaphysically and conceptually irreducible. There is no “other side” to existence. There is no “transcending” existence. The only alternative which human beings have to existence is what they can imagine, and the imaginary is not real.

Even when someone exclaims, “What are the chances of that happening?!” he’s essentially talking about probability, which properly belongs in the province of epistemology. (Here I recommend Peikoff’s discussion of the concepts of possibility and probability in his book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, pp. 175-179.) Probability is not some mystical force controlling reality behind the scenes.

In one of his lectures on science, Binswanger points out how we often give probabilities value-laden significance which is not inherent in the probabilities considered in and of themselves. There’s nothing wrong with this per se, but it can skew our understanding of the relevant facts if it is not recognized. To illustrate this, Binswanger uses the example of an ordinary deck of cards. Give the deck a thorough shuffling, and then draw four cards off the top. Suppose you immediately draw four aces. You’d probably say something like “What are the chances of that happening?!” Had you drawn the seven of clubs, the three of hearts, the ten of diamonds and the nine of spades, you’d probably not see anything significant about this. But in fact the odds of drawing this hand are the same as drawing all four aces. That’s because every card in the deck is just as unique as the next. There’s only one seven of clubs just as there’s only one ace of spades. The reason why we place more significance on the hand with four aces is because this has significant value in actual play, such as in a hand of poker.

This is just one of the reasons why we need not be so impressed by claims of statistical improbabilities in regard to naturally recurring phenomena so delightfully quoted by theistic apologists, such as in the case of the emergence or development of life on earth. Even if apologists successfully resist the temptation to inflate their statistical calculations to make natural phenomena seem all the more improbable, why should their statistics impress us? Something’s got to happen, and improbable things happen all the time, such as drawing four unique cards from a shuffled deck, meeting one’s future spouse for the first time, or handling a five dollar bill with a specific serial number.

In my wallet I have a five dollar bill with the serial number FD83499689A. Of all the millions upon millions of five dollar bills which have circulated (according to the US Department of the Treasury FAQs, “the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) produced approximately 38 million notes a day” in fiscal year 2007, “with a face value of approximately $750 million”), what are the chances that this one should one day find its way into my hands? I’d suppose the probability is astronomically small, but yet it happened all the same. And yet my worldview in no way requires that this particular five dollar bill wound up in my hands “without cause.”

Say that on the spur of the moment, I decide to take a road trip. As I drive across the country from my native California, I take a left at Albuquerque, and after a few twists and turns and rolls of the dice I find myself in a city I’ve never visited before, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. As I make my way into this city I decide that I want to stop and get out and walk around a bit. So I look for a place to park my car. Eventually I find a large public parking structure with six or eight floors, drive in and meander through the structure’s bosom until I find a vacant spot. I carefully ease my 2003 Ford Focus into the spot and turn off the engine. Then I think to myself, “what were the chances that sometime in my life I would one day end up parking my car in this particular parking spot?” Astronomical, right? Of all the thousands of parking spots in Pittsburg, PA, it’s already a statistical improbability. But given the context that I had no prior intention of going to Pittsburg in the first place, that I could have gone to any other city, or could have decided not to take a road trip in the first place, this very well might not have happened at all. Given this overall context, which includes my own choices and actions, it seems so improbable that I should one day park my car in this one specific parking spot in Pittsburg, PA, that one might suppose that it’s not possible at all. But in fact it happened. And it is completely natural, wholly consistent with “naturalistic” presuppositions, and in no way an affront to the law of causality. No laws of nature have been defied, and the outcome in fact does have a causal basis.

Does any of this require that I throw up my hands in despair and suppose that an invisible magic being is responsible for it all? No, not at all. At no point in any of this is the primacy of existence brought into question or doubt. Consequently, the moral of the story is that presuppositionalism’s tendentious usage of “chance” is nothing more than a big bluff, one which ironically backfires on itself.

by Dawson Bethrick

Thoughts on Recent Comments by Vytautas

Recent comments by Vytautas, an occasional visitor to my blog, prompted some questions on my part, and he was kind enough to offer a reply. I haven’t posted a blog in a while, so I thought I would take this occasion to kill two birds with one stone.

I wrote:

When you say that you disagree in your initial point, are you saying that facts are not objective for anyone?

Vytautas:

Facts are objective for the Christian view as well any other view.

An examination of the Christian worldview does not bear this out, as I have shown. Did you read my blog? Perhaps we’re operating on two different understandings of objectivity. I have explained what I mean by objectivity in my blog. Did you have difficulty understanding it, or do you have a different understanding of what objectivity is that you can provide?

I asked:

Is this itself a fact?

Vytautas:

No, because a statement about the facts in general is not a statement about something objective, since it is subjective.

I’m not sure I follow this. When you say that “because a statement about facts in general is not a statement about something objective,” are you saying that facts in general are not objective? Or are you saying that statements about facts cannot be objective?

I wrote:

And if so, is it not itself an objective fact – i.e., a fact that is impervious to conscious intentions? What is the alternative to objectivity in your view, if not some form of subjectivism?

Vytautas:

We can know things objectively as well as subjectively.

I know that we can know things objectively. Would “God” be something you “know” subjectively?

Vytautas:

Why are there only facts and not statements about the facts?

I think there are statements about facts.

I asked:

Also, when you say that “sense objects are able to affect the mind,” what specifically do you mean by this, and why would you conclude from this that facts are not objective?

Vytautas:

A sense objects are identified by the senses, and the mind passively takes in information about the object. The passive act of apprehending an object affects the mind, but if the mind does not sense the object, then the object cannot be identified. I deny that facts are not objective.

I’m still not clear on what you mean by objects “affecting” the mind. Now it is true that if a mind does not perceive an object, it will not identify that object. However, sense objects are identified, not by the senses, but by the faculty of reason (specifically through conceptual integration). This is not a passive process. Conceptual integration is an active process. Perception is also an active process, but unlike conceptual integration, perception is not a *volitional* process, it is physiological, automatic. Both are active processes. What they do not do is *create* or *alter* the objects involved. The objects remain what they are regardless of who perceives them, how often they are perceived, what one calls them, or how one might miscategorize them. That’s the primacy of existence: the objects of consciousness exist and are what they are independent of conscious activity. In the case of a god, however, whose will is said to possess the power to create objects “ex nihilo” (i.e., not from materials which already exist) and alter them according to its preferences and wishes, the primacy of existence does not hold. On the contrary, what we have here is the primacy of consciousness: objects exist and are what the ruling consciousness wants them to be. On this view, existence conforms to consciousness. It is a complete reversal of the primacy of existence. The outcome from such a view is that facts could not be objective, since they conform to the stipulations of a subject which allegedly has power to bring them into existence and reshape them at will. The Van Til quote which I gave in my blog confirms precisely this.

I wrote:

How does that follow? It sounds like you’re suggesting that the mind functions optimally if there are no sense objects to begin with to “affect the mind.” Anyway, some clarity on what you were trying to say here would be helpful, because as it stands now it’s vague and unsubstantial.

Vytautas:

A mind has an intellect and a will. The intellect passively takes in information of the sense object, but the will must operate on the sense data to make it understandable.

Again, I do not think that the mind passively takes in information, since perception (the means by which we have awareness of objects existing independent of us) is an active process. You seem to agree that the mind does volitionally process that information, but when you say that “the will must operate on the sense data to make it understandable,” what specifically do you mean here? What operation does the will perform on the sense data?

Vytautas:

If the facts are not objective, then all of reality as we perceive it would be subjective.

Ultimately this is the nature of reality as Christianity would have us believe, since it is a creation of consciousness and everything within it conforms to someone’s will. You can’t get more subjective than that.

I asked:

When you say that “God does not change [the fact that JF Kennedy died Nov. 22, 1963] in space-time because he [planned] this since the foundations of the world,” specifically which fact are you talking about that your god "does not change"? That JFK is dead? Or that he died on a specific date?

Vytautas:

It is the fact that the assassination happened in history. The event is not repeatable because it all ready happened. Even if JFK rose from the dead, that fact would be a different from the historical fact. So the same historical event cannot happen twice.

Well, if you say so. I’ve heard other Christians make conflicting intimations as they seem to grant wider latitude to the notion of “God’s sovereignty,” sometimes even making much of the claim that the Christian god exists “out of time.” Indeed, if I believed in an omnipotent being which is supposed to have created the whole universe and is said to rule over everything within it with a sovereign will, I don’t know why I would believe that it could not change history once it’s been made. What would prevent it from doing this?

I asked:

You claim that “only an irrational god” would change whichever fact is in question here, but why?

Vytautas:

It is because an irrational god would change its plan when it is carried out.

Who said anything about changing a plan? Maybe the plan included resurrecting JFK, revising the date of his assassination, or deleting it from history, all along. I see no reason why a change of plan would be needed for any of these options. It would be very easy for an omnipotent god to do this, I would think. It could also make it “understandable,” at the very least to itself, thus satisfying your criterion of rationality (see below). It would also be very easy to claim that it had planned such things from the very beginning.

Vytautas:

An irrational god does not plan everything in advance so it does not know everything in advance.

I’m not sure why. Below you say that “irrational” means “not understandable,” but I don’t see anything “not understandable” about the situation you describe here. In fact, just by your description of it, I have understood it. There’s nothing “not understandable” about not planning everything in advance or not knowing everything in advance.

I wrote:

It seems that you would consider anything your god plans and does “rational,” even if it involved resurrecting JFK or revising the date on which he was assassinated.

Vytautas:

God is rational because he plans out history, but an irrational god is captive
to his creation.

I’m trying to integrate this with how you defined ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ below. So, to go by your definition, you’re saying that “God is [understandable] because he plans out history, but a [not understandable] god is captive to his creation.” Is that what you meant to say? I’m wondering how “rational” your position is, because the more you try to explain it, the harder and harder it is becoming to understand.

Vytautas:

We only know history after the fact. So we don’t know if God will resurrect JFK, but he will not revise the date on which he was assassinated because then God would be inconstant with what he has decreed.

If the Christian god had planned to revise the date on which JFK was assassinated, it wouldn’t be “inconstant with what he has decreed.” And unless you are the Christian god, you wouldn’t have full knowledge of what it has decreed. Given Christianity’s supernaturalism and its all-powerful, sovereign deity, there’s no reason why it should be supposed impossible that JFK was originally assassinated in 1976 and the Christian god revised the date back to 1963. We wouldn’t know either way unless your god wanted us to know. It seems quite unrealistic, on these presuppositions, for a finite, fallible and non-omniscient creature to say what an infinite, infallible, omniscient and omnipotent deity can or cannot do.

I asked:

Surely you believe that your god is capable of performing both alterations, no?

Vytautas:

I deny that God is capable of performing both alterations, since it would make him irrational.

And according to what you say below, “irrational” is, on your view, apparently just a synonym for “not understandable.” It’s not at all clear why performing one of the alterations mentioned above would preserve your god’s understandability, while performing the other (or both) wouldn’t.

I asked:

And if you believed your god had a purpose for resurrecting JFK or changing the date on which he was assassinated, would you call that “irrational”?

Vytautas:

No

This is a puzzling answer, given your above points. Above you just got through saying that you “deny that God is capable of performing both alterations, since it would make him irrational,” but now you seem to say that having a reason for doing one or the other would not be irrational. You’re losing me.

I wrote:

Justin gave some brief comments on why it’s quizzical at best to ascribe rationality or irrationality to a god’s behavior. I’m wondering if you could clarify what you were trying to say, and what you mean by “rational” and “irrational”.

Vytautas:

’Rational’ means understandable. And ‘irrational’ means not understandable.

I’ve never seen these definitions for these terms before. Is this from the bible? I would say that the doctrine of the trinity would make the Christian god irrational on this definition of ‘irrational’, since the doctrine of the trinity makes it utterly beyond comprehension. Various other Christian doctrines make Christianity as a worldview irrational on this conception of it. For instance, the doctrine of prayer. Jesus is portrayed repeatedly in the gospels telling believers to ask what they want and they’ll get it, because Jesus himself is faithful. But there always seems to be some reason why this fails. (See for instance here.) That’s “not understandable” given the promises we find attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. There’s also the doctrine of the Christian god’s glory. It already is said to possess all glory, but believers are supposed to “give God the glory” as well. Van Til referred to this as “the full bucket problem,” and did not have any clear (“understandable”) answer to it. I could go on, but by now you should see my point.

Also, on this definition of ‘rational’, I – an atheist, mind you – am rational, because I am understandable (sufficiently so for you to carry on a discussion with me). My worldview, because it is understandable (I certainly understand it), is also rational. But Christian apologists often insist that atheism is irrational (apparently, “not understandable”), even though I understand it, and that a worldview which rejects Christian theism cannot be rational (even though I understand my worldview, which is non-Christian and non-theistic).

Vytautas:

God is rational in relation to himself, but God is incomprehensible to man, so that he must reveal himself to man, if we are to know something about God.

I’m confident that one could say such things about anything he has imagined.

by Dawson Bethrick

Rival Philosophies of Fact

Sources on presuppositionalism make it clear that, because of its “methodology” (see for instance here), the question of the Christian god’s existence cannot be settled on the basis of facts. For instance, Cornelius Van Til himself made this crystal clear when he wrote:

It is impossible and useless to seek to defend Christianity as an historical religion by a discussion of facts only. (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 7)

With resolute pronouncements such as this, what card-carrying presuppositionalist would disagree? Of course, this is the kind of attitude one might expect from a position that cannot be supported by facts in the first place. If appealing to facts is not sufficient to validate a position one holds on the basis of faith, he might as well come out and declare that “a discussion of facts only” is simply the wrong vehicle for substantiating that position. And lo, that’s precisely what Van Til does.

Consider for a moment some of the major tenets of what Christianity teaches, tenets which everyone is expected to accept as factual, but without factual support. For instance, that the Christian deity is real, that it created the universe (“the earth and the heaven”), that it created man in its own image, that it chose a people as its favorites (the ancient Israelites), that it sent its only begotten son to die a horrific death in order to “redeem” anyone who is bamboozled by all these and other teachings of the sacred storybook. If all of these claims are supposed to be factual, why cannot “a discussion of facts only” serve in defending them? Does Van Til think that a discussion of something other than facts is needed to defend “Christianity as an historical religion”? If so, what is this other something?

This is where Van Til raised the issue of which philosophy of facts best equips a thinker to deal with the individual facts he discovers in the world. But we would be wrong to assume that this means that Van Til is actually concerned with preserving the integrity of a fact-based way of looking at the world. On the contrary, his aim here is to hijack the issue of facts and seat it on mystical presuppositions. Hence the name of his apologetic artifice, presuppositionalism.

Now the bible does not lay out any explicit theory of facts. Indeed, it seems not even to speak of facts in any intelligent manner. It certainly does not spell out a philosophy of facts. Its authors were clearly more concerned with invoking the wrath of an invisible magic being, endorsing doctrinal positions on the basis of faith, shaming readers into submission, prostituting their minds and filling their imaginations with horrific fantasies and bizarre teachings. But this is not to say that an implicit understanding of the nature of facts cannot be ascertained from the contents of the bible.

Without a doubt, the biblical worldview characterizes all facts as dependent on the will of its deity. Today’s theologians and apologists are explicit in their affirmation of such characterizations. On this view, facts are created, which means: they do not exist independent of consciousness, in particular of the supernatural consciousness which is claimed to have created them. Consequently, however ‘fact’ is defined by today’s defenders of Christianity, one thing is certain: the biblical portrait represents facts as inherently subjective, that is: they depend on and conform to the dictates of a ruling subject whose say-so is the final court of appeal in determining their nature at any given moment. The Christian “philosophy of fact” is subjective because it assumes the metaphysical primacy of the subject in the subject-object relationship. On this view, facts are whatever the ruling subject wants them to be. This is the essential metaphysical view which underlies the notion that wishing makes it so. In this context, subjectivism is essentially the view that reality, facts and truth are obedient to the dictates of some privileged consciousness.

Contrast the Christian view of facts with the objective theory of facts. Where the Christian view of facts clearly seats facts on the dictates of an omnipotent subject – thus affirming the primacy of the subject in the subject-object relationship, the objective theory of facts is based on the primacy of the object in the subject-object relationship. This theory recognizes that facts are what they are independent of consciousness, of any consciousness, that facts do not bend or reshape themselves in response to wishes, desires, commands, threats, insults, or protestation. It is on the basis of the objective theory of facts that one makes statements such as “wishing doesn’t make it so” or “Mt. McKinley is located in Alaska whether anyone realizes it or not.” According to the objective theory of facts, if facts were actually based on the dictates of consciousness (e.g., will, wishing, preference, etc.), it would not make any sense to affirm anything as factual; all it would take is another consciousness to come along and say it’s not a fact, and reality would obey. For this reason, it should be clear that the Christian is borrowing from a non-Christian conception of facts whenever he makes statements like “God exists even if no one believes it.” For on the Christian view, as we have seen, facts conform to consciousness, which can only mean that facts are not objective according to the Christian view.

Van Til made it clear that, on the Christian view, we cannot rely on facts, for they have no inherent stability whatsoever:

God may at any time take one fact and set it into a new relation to created law. That is, there is no inherent reason in the facts or laws why this should not be done. It is this sort of conception of the relation of facts and laws, of the temporal one and many, embedded as it is in the idea of God in which we profess to believe, that we need in order to make room for miracles. And miracles are at the heart of the Christian position. (The Defense of the Faith, p. 27)

On this view, it may be a fact this moment that Mt. McKinley is located in Alaska. But, since the Christian god “may at any time take one fact and set it into a new relation to created law,” who but the ruling consciousness knows where Mt. McKinley may be in the next moment? The ruling consciousness may decide to relocate it in southern Japan, or Tanzania, or Laos. The flexibility that Van Til reserves for facts in relation to principles of thought certainly affords this.

Now Van Til is explicit in telling us that his worldview needs this kind of facts-in-flux view of things “in order to make room for miracles.” And it’s not just that facts can change at random; since ‘random’ is actually an epistemological concept, the changes that facts undergo in this context would be random so far as the believer is concerned. But this is a mere incidental outcome that the believer has to deal with in his worldview. Even more than this, since this view represents facts as subject to deliberate, intentional change, there would be no identifiable causality to the changes taking place traceable to the nature of the facts themselves. The changes that facts would undergo, on Van Til’s view, would bear no relation to their nature, but depend completely on the whim of an invisible magic being whose “counsel” or “plan” is an utter mystery to the believer. He just has to go along with the flow, imagining that anything and everything that happens around him is being choreographed by a supernatural, reality-ruling consciousness whose exercise of will historically (per the bible at any rate) includes such notable and examples as turning water into wine, enabling men to walk on unfrozen water,

According to the Christian “philosophy of fact,” facts are creations of a supernatural consciousness. On this view, facts are essentially wished into existence by an omnipotent conscious being. This is explicitly held to be the case for all facts. Writes Van Til:

God is the creator of every fact. (Christian Theistic Evidences, p. 88; quoted in Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic, p. 378.)

Elsewhere Van Til writes:

The Christian starts his reasoning from the presupposition that what God, through Christ, says in the Scriptures is true. Accordingly all “facts” are God and Christ created and directed to the consummation of history.” (“An Uncertain Sound: An Evaluation Of The Philosophy Of Hendrik Hart,” 1971)

Christian apologist Mike Warren similarly exclaims:

All facts are God-created, God-interpreted facts.” (Christian Civilization is the Only Civilization)

Of course, note that when statements like these are made, they appear as bare assertions, announcements which are to be taken on faith, on authority, on the implied threat of psychological or spiritual sanction. Readers are expected to feel compelled to accept these claims without objective support because they’re supposed to believe that something bad will happen to them – either in the here and now of reality, or in the afterlife which awaits – if they don’t’ accept them.

Now a fundamental problem should be immediately obvious here. The Christian wants us to accept as fact the claim that his god exists. We are also told that, for the Christian, “the most basic fact of all facts is the existence of the triune God” (Common Grace and the Gospel, ch. 1). So it is a fact, we are told, that the Christian god exists. But we are also told that this “God is the creator of every fact,” that “all facts are God-created.” So was the fact that this god exists, also created by this same god? This seems quite illogical. To create anything, a creator-god would first have to exist. A thing cannot create the fact of its own existence. The presuppositionalist must allow an exception to the rule here, but this would split facts into two mutually exclusive categories, thus requiring duplicitous provisions in the Christian theory of facts. It would, in the case of its god’s existence for instance, need to allow for at least some facts to be uncreated. But if any facts can be uncreated, why couldn’t all other facts be uncreated? A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

Elsewhere Van Til writes

all facts in this universe are under God’s control” (“The Resurrection As A Part Of Christian Truth,” The Banner, 1939, Vol. 74, p. 339)

While this statement focuses on the facts which obtain within the universe proper, the same subordination of those facts to the dictates of the ruling consciousness is maintained. Anything we take as factual in the universe is subject to revision according to the ruling consciousness’ divine whims. According to a rational worldview, It’s a fact that apples come from apple trees. But on the Christian worldview, this is only factual so long as the Christian god desires to keep it that way. It could decide to change this fact, such that apples instead come from cucumber plants or from fish anuses. In the end, on the Christian view, it’s the desires of the Christian god which are absolute, not the facts we discover in reality. Talk about reducing a worldview to absurdity!

But this systemic embrace of absurdity at such a fundamental level of thought does not keep believers today from endorsing it. For instance, in his blog entry What Are the Facts? (Repeat), Gavin Beers quotes Christian apologist R.J. Rushdoony as follows:

For the Christian, all factuality is God-created and the product of His eternal purpose; all facts are thus totally rational, becasue [sic] the mind of God is behind them, and their reality is thus more than physical and natural.

The view expressed here repeats the same major problem for the Christian "philosophy of fact" which we saw above, for it presupposes that for facts to be rational, "the mind of God" must be "behind them." In other words, all facts must have been created by the Christian god. Without this element of having been created by the Christian god, so the reasoning goes, no fact would be intelligible. Again, this can only mean that, if it is a fact that the Christian god exists, either the Christian god created this fact (which, as we saw above, is nonsensical), or qua fact it is unintelligible. This is quite a dilemma for the Christian, but it is unavoidable given the predominant view of facts affirmed in these statements. Since to say that a being created the fact of its own existence would commit the fallacy of the stolen concept (by characterizing such a fact as the product of a creative act, such a claim would require that the fact in question did not obtain prior to its creation, and yet the alleged fact in question is that the creator of all facts exists), the unavoidable implications of the view expressed here render it completely absurd and nonsensical. And yet, this is what can be expected from the Christian “philosophy of fact” that Van Til affirms as essential to his worldview and its proper defense.

The Christian view would then need to affirm two fundamentally different conceptions of facts, one pertaining to uncreated facts (which, per the statements quoted above, are apparently not allowed) and one pertaining to created facts. And even though it’s clear that Van Til and other presuppositionalists do not make such provision, such duplicity would be required in order to stave off the absurd internal implications that have hitherto been identified, and yet it would also create further problems. For analytic philosophers, this view of factuality seems quite a death knell. Facts which have traditionally been taken as “necessary” suddenly become “contingent,” since all facts on the Christian view were “created.” The fact that 2+2=4, for instance, was “created” by the Christian god. Of course, not all Christians would agree with this implication; but given the exhaustive pervasiveness of the presuppositionalists’ assertions, absurdities like this are an unavoidable by-product of the Christian theory of facts.

But the absurdities do not stop there. The problem is bigger than just its implications for the fact that 2+2=4. If facts are dependent upon someone’s will, as the Christian worldview holds, then obviously those facts have no necessary content of their own. Facts, on such a view, are not necessary, but utterly contingent, contingent upon the will of the being said to have the power to create and alter them. On such a basis, one could never claim to really know any facts, for any fact he might claim to know could be altered at any time without his knowing it. Certainly believers do not expect their god to seek their consent or approval before altering any facts it has chosen to alter. One might say, for instance, that it’s a fact that dogs are mammals; but since this fact was “created” by the Christian god and this god can revise it at any time, it could change: dogs could suddenly become reptiles on this view. Christians like to reply to this kind of objection by saying that their god has a rational nature, that it wouldn’t act against its nature, etc., none of which is very convincing against the relief of the sovereignty it is said to possess over the universe and its means of revelation to man via miracles. After all, we can affirm the fact that John F. Kennedy is dead, but the Christian god, if it were real, could resurrect the assassinated president at any time if it wanted to. Again, its wants, desires, wishes and whims hold metaphysical primacy over the domain of factuality. Ironically enough, such responses in essence come across as de facto denials of divine omnipotence: while they claim that their god is omnipotent, it has apparently chosen not to exercise it outside the confines of a self-inflicted straitjacket. Why? Appeals to “divine rationality” ring hollow, since no Christian would say that his god’s miraculous interventions in history, as recorded in the Old and New Testaments, were irrational. Such “rationality” as the Christian conceives of it includes not only the “natural order” of things as we actually perceive them in the world, but also any revision of them (e.g., miracles), however temporary.

And let’s not forget another important doctrine of Christianity: the doctrine of malevolent spirits. While Christians might claim that their god would not transform dogs from mammals into reptiles, who is to say that demons and devils cannot or would not? Indeed, the problem still persists, especially when we factor in the claim that supernatural beings other than just the Christian god are said to lurk “back of” the objects we perceive in the world. Mischievous and nefarious, demons, devils and other spooks are supposed also to inhabit the supernatural realm and wield influence over the “created order”; indeed, the bible itself claims that the leader of these malevolent spirits, Satan, is “the prince of this world” (cf. Jn. 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). As supernatural beings which have the power to take possession of human beings (cf. Mt. 4:24, 8:16, 28, 9:32, 12:22; Mk. 1:32, 5:15-18) and manipulate, deceive, and misguide them, they too have the ability to meddle with man’s efforts to know facts.

So really, what we have in the Christian theory of facts is not fully disclosed by its spokesmen: not only does the Christian god hold metaphysical primacy over the facts of the world, but so do other alleged supernatural beings.

Of course, Christians themselves have shown that, even on their own terms, it is notoriously difficult to distinguish “the supernatural” from the imaginary. I surmise that this is because there is no fundamental distinction between the two. In the end, since Christianity actually asserts the primacy of the supernatural over the realm of facts, believers are really telling us that the imaginary holds metaphysical primacy over the actual, since they claim such primacy on behalf of their imaginary spirits.

Notice how all this systematically destroys any potential for knowledge of the world. If any of these spirits are able to alter the identity of things which exist (such as turning water into wine), or cause them to act against their natures (such as enabling human beings to walk on unfrozen water), who is to say that none of them could alter our memory of the past, or even change history without us knowing it? Surely the Christian god is not bound to the temporal order of the universe, is it? Since the Christian god can at any time, we are told, take any fact and put it into a new relationship with created law, who is to say our memory of things we have done or witnessed could ever be accurate? I remember getting my driver’s license when I was 16 years old, for instance. But if I believed that such a being as the god Christianity describes and worships were real, that memory could be completely false. Maybe I was 18 when I got my license, or 26, or maybe I never got one, or maybe I was born with it already in hand and just don’t know this. Or, it could be true today that I got my license at 16, and false tomorrow, and then true again the next day. What is to stop an omnipotent being from revising the past in such a manner? Does the believer himself presume to be able to stop this? If he says that no one, including the god he claims to worship, can alter the past once it has happened, then clearly he’s telling us that neither his god nor any other being is truly omnipotent, or at any rate that his god has the same relationship to the past that we have. If he says that his god can go back in time and revise history, but simply wouldn’t, then the believer sets himself as the author of his god’s plan: his god does whatever he imagines it does. And of course, what would keep an actually existing sovereign deity from deceiving me into believing that I ever got my driver’s license in the first place, let alone at 16 years old? Blank out.

Avoiding a “direct appeal to facts” is essential to the presuppositional approach to defending Christian theism or settling the debate between believers and non-believers. As Van Til himself states:

The method of reasoning by presupposition may be said to be indirect rather than direct. The issue between believers and non-believers in Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to “facts” or “laws” whose nature and significance is [sic] already agreed upon by both parties to the debate.(The Defense of the Faith, p. 100)

Here Van Til adds a new qualification to the treatment of facts in his apologetic treatment. He says that the debate between believer and non-believer “cannot be settled by a direct appeal to ‘facts’ or ‘laws’ whose nature and significance is [sic] already agreed upon by both parties to the debate.” Of course, if the believer holds that “God is the creator of every fact” and that “all ‘facts’ are God and Christ created and directed to the consummation of history,” as we have already seen Van Til affirm, while the non-believer (particularly if he subscribes to an objective view of reality) recognizes that facts are not subject to conscious intentions, then there probably is no such agreement between them. On the Christian view, facts are creations of consciousness, open to revision according to divine whim, while on an objective view facts are what they are independent of consciousness, regardless of who likes it, regardless of who disapproves. The two positions are diametrically opposed from their very foundations. And yet, since both the believer and the non-believer live in the same reality, they do in fact have many points of ‘common ground’ in metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, only the believer has a confessional motivation to deny this fact outright, or interpret it in favor of protecting his confessional investment by means of assimilation.

Notice how Van Til puts defining importance on whether or not the nature and significance of facts are “agreed upon by both parties to the debate.” Why should their agreement or disagreement on these things matter if in fact the facts in question are indeed factual? Shouldn’t the fact that they are factual matter more? Apparently not for Van Til. Van Til takes the Christian command to “come out and be ye separate” (II Cor. 6:17) very seriously. It seems that what is of primary importance for Van Til, since he names no facts to begin with, is division between believer and non-believer for the sake of division as such. Agreement with the non-believer is to be avoided at all costs, even at the cost of an objective understanding of facts. The impulse for all this is the believer’s determination to imagine a supernatural consciousness “back of” everything we perceive and discover in the world. Van Til makes this crystal clear when he writes:

I could believe in nothing else if I did not, as back of everything, believe in this God. (“Toward A Reformed Apologetic,” 1972)

Since upholding and defending such imaginations as if they reflected “absolute reality” – a reality that is even more real than the reality in which we live, move and have our being on a daily basis – is of prime importance to someone like Van Til, it’s no surprise that the antithetical divide between himself and those who do not indulge in such imaginations is emphasized like this.

An obvious outcome given Van Til’s stated view is that, if the non-believer disagrees with the believer at any point, this fact itself is a creation of his god. This points right back to the alleged creator of facts as the cause for such disagreement and division. It makes no sense to hold the non-believer accountable for his disagreement with the believer, or for any position he might happen to hold, for if he holds a certain position, on Van Til’s view the fact that he holds it is just another of his god’s creations: his god obviously wanted it this way. The unavoidable implications of determinism serve only to reduce any accountability on man’s part to “God made me do it.” So the common presuppositionalist strategy of urging the non-believer to “account for” his non-belief or any position he might affirmatively take on any issue, is rather farcical: the non-believer only needs to point out that the apologist, according to his own presuppositions, is looking in the wrong place for the explanations he has asked for.

Instead of focusing on any specific facts themselves, Van Til thinks the debate stems from something prior to facts. Van Til explains:

The question is rather as to what is the final reference-point required to make the “facts” and “laws” intelligible. The question is as to what the “facts” and “laws” really are. Are they what the non-Christian methodology assumes that they are? Are they what the Christian theistic methodology presupposes they are? (The Defense of the Faith, p. 100)

Van Til makes it clear that, for his worldview, facts are clearly not primaries. Something takes priority to facts, and logically, whatever this something is that exists before them must be something other than factual, for he makes it clear that there is something which precedes facts. Van Til’s statement here would serve no purpose if that which comes before facts is just another bunch of facts; it must be something other than facts, it must be non-factual. Van Til calls it “the final reference-point,” but does not explicitly state what he means by this in this section of his book. To find clues as to what Van Til means here, we look further in his book:

The final point of reference in all predication must ultimately rest in some mind, divine or human. It is either the self-contained God of Christianity or the would-be autonomous man that must be and is presupposed as the final reference point in every sentence that any man utters. (Ibid., p. 215.)

What Van Til states here supplies a portion of the context missing from his previous statement about the need to identify “the final reference-point required to make the ‘facts’ and ‘laws’ intelligible.” And it is quite clear: for Van Til, “the final-reference point” which makes laws and facts intelligible must be subject in the subject-object relationship, either human or supernatural. So far as I can find, Van Til provides no argument for his view that “the final point of reference in all predication must ultimately rest in some mind, divine or human.” Indeed, it is not entirely clear what exactly this is supposed to mean, so I have little choice but to interpret it literally. A point of reference would, as I understand it, be some object to which one’s identifications (which would include predication) and judgments refer. Van Til may have meant something else (he seems to treat the objects of cognition as unnecessary), but if so I would say that he has expressed himself quite poorly. Even some of Van Til’s own devoted followers have complained about Van Til’s “’torturous English’, his redundant and unclear style, his penchant for sloganeering, and his disorganized presentation of themes” (Michael Butler, “The Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence,” in Schlissel’s The Standard Bearer: A Festschrift for Greg L. Bahnsen, p. 70). Regardless, it seems that Van Til can only mean that, for his “philosophy of fact,” a subject must hold primacy over all objects in order for predication of facts to be possible. From the very outset, this rules out the primacy of objects in the subject-object relationship, which means it rules out all objectivity. On an objective orientation, the “final point of reference” would the facts of reality themselves, beginning with the fact that existence exists, since it is understood on the objective view that facts obtain independent of consciousness; they do not conform to conscious intentions. The “the final point of reference” would not be a mind, as if a mind could dictate what reality consists of or what it should be. A mind needs content, just as consciousness requires an object, and that content must come from somewhere. On an objective view, that content ultimately comes from what is perceived, the objects of awareness; on the theistic view, the mind creates its own content, consciousness creates its own objects.

So what about Van Til’s last questions here? Are facts “what the non-Christian methodology assumes that they are?” Or, “are they what the Christian theistic methodology presupposes they are?” To sort this out, Van Til proposes the following two-step apologetic procedure:

The answer to this question cannot be finally settled by any direct discussion of “facts.” It must, in the last analysis, be settled indirectly. The Christian apologist must place himself upon the position of his opponent, assuming the correctness of his method merely for argument’s sake, in order to show him that on such a position the “facts are not facts and the “laws” are not laws. He must also ask the non-Christian to place himself upon the Christian position for argument’s sake in order that he may be shown that only upon such a basis do “facts” and “laws” appear intelligible. (Ibid., pp. 100-101)

Regarding the second step, I have already noted its parallels to sampling drug use. This step of the presuppositional apologetic very much resembles the kind of tactic an addict might use to goad non-users into the world of substance abuse. “Just try it. Once you do, you’ll see how everything in this crazy world finally makes sense!” I prefer a more scientific route, analyzing the chemical causality of the substance on the brain, thus understanding why the drug alters its users’ behavior so drastically. This is essentially what I have done above, by pointing out how the Christian theory of facts is fundamentally subjective, thus obliterating the very concept ‘fact’ in its destructive wake.

The very last statement Van Til makes is especially curious, given the way he words it. He wants to show the non-believer that “only upon such a basis do ‘facts’ and ‘laws’ appear intelligible.” Van Til’s own pupil, Greg Bahnsen, points out that “the Bible distinguishes between appearance and reality” (Always Ready, p. 181). Even Proverbs 14:12 warns that “there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” So in Van Til’s case, while “facts” and “laws” as his worldview conceives of them may appear “intelligible,” his own worldview tells us that this may be only a mirage. Van Til needs to give more assurance than his customary unsupported assertions and catchy slogans to make his case. And given the points we’ve seen so far, such a venture would be hopeless from the very start.

But what about what “the non-Christian methodology” assumes facts to be? Isn’t this racked with problems of its own? Well, it depends on which “non-Christian methodology” we’re talking about. A non-Christian methodology would be any which is not Christian, and there’s lots of those. Most thinkers, regardless of religiosity, do not walk around with a fully developed “philosophy of fact” formulated in their minds. However, in spite of its difficulties, some general features of fact theory can and should be explicitly articulated, specifically with regard to the orientation between subject and object. A philosophy of facts which human beings can apply in their lives must at minimum comply with the primacy of existence, and do so without compromise. Compromising the primacy of existence can only lead, if left uncorrected, to a blurring between reality and fantasy, which is the very bloodline of a mystical worldview (such as Christianity). To my knowledge, Objectivism is the only worldview which identifies the primacy of existence as a fundamental principle guiding human cognition, and which takes it seriously in its effort to develop a worldview consistent with that principle. Given the incontestable truth of this principle, the only philosophy of fact worthy of its name must stand in accordance with the primacy of existence, the essence of the principle of objectivity, for facts are objective, and a worldview dealing in facts must provide understanding of this from its very foundations. At the very least we can conclude that one should not look to Christianity for such principles.

by Dawson Bethrick