I am not a presuppositionalist. I don’t believe there is only one correct apologetics methodology as the presuppositionalists claim: I’m in the whatever works camp. For those not familiar with such methodologies, these are ways of going about defending the truth claims of Christianity. I’ve long been frustrated with the one-way-to-do-apologetics insistence when I learned about these methodologies at seminary in 1986. I had gotten the book Classical Apologetics by Sproul, Gerstner, and Lindsley where I first learned of the different apologetics camps. The subtitle drew me in: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics. These guys believed that the classical approach was the right approach to apologetics, and that frustrated me too.

Being introduced to presuppositionalism at seminary, I had a difficult time understanding it as espoused by its most famous practitioner, Cornelius Van Til. What especially frustrated me, though, was the presuppositionalist contention that their methodology is the only correct biblical apologetics method. The classical apologists, and the evidentialists as well, don’t claim theirs is the only biblical approach like the presuppositionalists, only that it’s the best or right approach. After thinking about this for 35 plus years, I am convinced there is no one biblical or correct apologetics methodology. Let me try to explain why for those who are interested in this kind of stuff.

I’ve been listening to a series on Thomas Aquinas from the Ezra Institute, and listened to an episode dedicated to his apologetics. The Ezra guys are dedicated presuppositionalists and believe it is the only valid biblical way to defend the faith. Our pastor agrees, and last year did a sermon on Acts 17 from this perspective, and it was one of the most frustrating sermons I’ve ever experienced, and that’s saying something given I’ve sat through 43(!) years of sermons. Over all these years of thinking about this, I’ve finally been able to nail down my primary frustration with presuppositionalists. I agree with most of their theology, but it’s the non sequiturs that drive me nuts.

It seems this logical fallacy is common among we sinful human beings, and I include myself in that. It simply means the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise. For example, I don’t like a movie, therefore someone concludes I don’t like all movies. The conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise; I just don’t like that specific movie. The more you become aware of this sinful human tendency, the more common it becomes, like shopping for cars and the car you like seems to be everywhere. Presuppositionalists commit this logical fallacy when they declare anyone who believes in another methodology believes two things:

1. Epistemological neutrality, and 2. Autonomous reason

Number one, If I utilize or believe in a different methodology, they assert that I believe my knowing is not affected by sin and the fall. No Christian believes this, least of all Christian apologists, but presuppositionalists make this accusation all the time. Here is the non sequitur: Just because I don’t agree with their apologetics methodology, doesn’t mean I believe in epistemological neutrality. The same goes for number two. If I disagree with their methodology, they assert I believe reason isn’t tainted by sin, and able by its own unaided reasoning to come to ultimate truth. This is an absurd accusation because nobody believes it! Just because I see value in the Kalam cosmological argument, for example, doesn’t mean I think human reason is pure and untainted by sin. But presuppositionalists claim that I do.

The issue is epistemological, or how we come to know what we know. The main text used for this is Romans 1:

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

The presuppositionalists focus on verse 18, that sinful human beings suppress the truth, meaning their ontological status as sinners makes them incapable and unwilling to accept truth. All Christians believe this to one degree or another contra the presuppositionalists. No Christian apologist whatever their methodology, or like me if they don’t have one, believes in a pure reason untainted by sin that has the ability of itself to know the saving truth of Christianity. We all agree the gospel is revealed truth, and God must supernaturally open people’s minds or they will not accept it.

What is strange to me about the presuppositionalist position is that in the very next verse Paul says sinners can know about God because God has made knowledge of who he is plain to them in creation. In fact, he says, His supernatural divine being is in some way obvious! People know it whether they acknowledge it or not. These are deep philosophical waters, too deep to wade into in a blog post, but the main reason I don’t fully buy the presuppositionalist position as I understand it, is because human beings don’t work that way. The Ezra guys and others I’ve heard and read over the years make the assertion specifically about Thomas’s Five Ways, i.e., proofs for the existence of God, that these arguments don’t lead to the God of the Bible, but to some vague Aristotelian god. So? Nobody stops there and says, there, we prove God’s existence, have a great life! No, they lead them to the Scriptures to meet the true and living God, the Creator of the universe, the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

There is no one “biblical” apologetics method because God uses everything to bring sinners to himself. I’ve listened to hundreds of testimonies over the last several years, and few people presuppose their way to Him. I argue from assumptions all the time when I’m talking to people, but that doesn’t mean I can only use assumptions. I believe the presuppositionalist arguments are powerful, but so is everything else God uses to reveal himself to sinners. The number of people who have come to Christ because of non-presuppositionalist apologists like Willian Lane Craig, R.C. Sproul, and C. S. Lewis is all I need to know that there is no one “biblical” apologetics methodology.

One of the podcasts I consistently listen to is the Side B Stories podcast, which is interviews of ex-atheists, agnostics, or skeptics. There are over 60 now, and I’ve listened to every one of them, and these people come to Christ in every way imaginable. The latest is this young man, Nico Tarquinio, who was profoundly affected by Bill Craig’s cosmological argument, among other traditional apologetics arguments. I don’t care what the argument or reasoning is, if it leads someone to Christ, that’s biblical enough for me!