A Cloud of Witnesses Against Presuppositionalism

It has been alleged that the growing number of us who sharply oppose presuppositionalism in the Church do so from a position which is novel, naive, ignorant, dishonest, or even disrespectful.

While it is possible that, in any given instance, any one of us may be guilty of any combinations of such faults, it certainly is not the case (as is often presumed) that to sharply oppose presuppositionalism per se makes one guilty of those faults.

Unless, of course, the accuser wishes to also accuse the likes of Drs. Sproul, Gerstner, and Lindsley––whose very sharp critiques of both presuppositionalism and presuppositionalists we cite below.

While the below is not an exhaustive testament to the cloud of witnesses in opposition to presuppositional thought throughout history, it should be sufficient to demonstrate that we are not alone. We are following in the footsteps of men who are giants of the faith.

“The implications of presuppositionalism, in our opinion, undermine the Christian religion implicitly….If and when presuppositional principles are carried out consistently, they destroy what their advocates love. We are already seeing this deadly work…We will show that presuppositional principles, carried out consistently, undermine the Christian religion itself.”

– Classical Apologetics, 184.

“Fideism is the real culprit. We are aware that Van Til and others deny that they are fideistic, but while we honor their sincerity, we will try to prove their self-estimate wrong.”

– Classical Apologetics, 184.

“Presuppositionalist Christians stand back-to-back with the world against the traditional theistic proofs. The oddest of couples appear in perfect harmony. Kant is no more insistent than Van Til that God’s existence cannot be proved. Clark and Hume make common cause against miracle as evidence for truth. Lessing and Dooyeweerd are together on this side of the “Great Ditch.” Carl Henry and Karl Barth agree that you must arbitrarily believe if you are ever going to understand supernatural Christianity.”

– Classical Apologetics, 253.

“We give Kant and others to Cornelius Van Til, but John Calvin and the Calvinist tradition in general is against him.”

– Classical Apologetics, 256–57.

“Van Til will probably charge us with gross unfairness here…but what he admits in one breath, he takes back with the next.”
– Classical Apologetics, 261.

“This false apologetic [presuppositionalism] preaches that sinners cannot know God where they can and that they can know God where they cannot.”

– Classical Apologetics, 263.

“[What must be repudiated is] Van Til’s tragic aberration which is shaking the very foundations of the Christian religion. However orthodox Van Til’s affirmations and convictions may be, the foundations on which he bases them are not a bit less paradoxical than those of Karl Barth.”

– Classical Apologetics, 263.

“Presuppositionalism burns its evidential bridges behind it and cannot, while remaining presuppositional, rebuild them. It burns its bridges by refusing evidences on the ground that evidences must be presupposed.”

– Classical Apologetics, 286.

“Just as [presuppositionalism] fideistically repudiates fideism and irrationally repudiates irrationality, so it paradoxically repudiates paradox. It makes Karl Barth look like the champion of “system” and Emil Brunner the most consistent of theologians.”

– Classical Apologetics, 287.

“[In Van Til] we hear contradiction, paradox, confusion, incoherence. His description of the God of Scripture defies comprehension….Orthodoxy which has always been known for its clarity is here obscurantism, pure and simple.”

– Classical Apologetics, 295.

“In spite of his protestations to the contrary, his Christianity is unrational and is taken on ‘blind faith.’”

– Classical Apologetics, 299.

“By divorcing [the experience of the testimony of the Holy Spirit] from all external evidence that the Bible is the Word of God and can be interpreted correctly, Frame falls into pure, mystical subjectivism. Consequently, he forfeits all possibility of arguing for his doctrine.”

– Classical Apologetics, 300.

“According to Dooyeweerd, the Scriptural message at its core cannot be understood without the Holy Spirit. This also is subjectivism pure and simple.”

– Classical Apologetics, 303.

“Van Til will not and cannot consistently defend the sinner’s knowledge. Van Til’s ‘knowledge’ dissipates in paradox. By contrast, the type of knowledge about God that Aquinas in his Summa attributes to the unregenerate is far superior to anything that Van Til has envisioned, and more stable.”

– Classical Apologetics, 305.

“Suffice it to say that Van Til puts all his apologetic eggs in one basket — presuppositionalism. Evidence cannot prove God but God must prove the evidence. So Van Til does not use Christian evidences but utterly destroys them. In so doing, he destroys the real evidence of the Christian religion which he loves so much.”

– Classical Apologetics, 308.

“If the presuppositionalist offers any reason, he ceases to be a presuppositionalist. Bahnsen is too consistent to do that. But a faith in Scripture, or in anything for that matter, that does not rest on reasons, is fideism. Thus, if Van Til or Bahnsen deny that their faith in Scripture is fideistic they will be denying their presuppositionalism. If they admit it, they admit fideism. In short, presuppositionalism is a form of fideism, and this charge cannot be denied without denying presuppositionalism.”

– Classical Apologetics, 309.

“Certainly there is a real and profound difference between Immanuel Kant and Cornelius Van Til. It is questionable, however, how real that difference actually is in the realm of thought.”

– Classical Apologetics, 313.

“In the presuppositional system, there is no real bridge between God’s thought and human thought, even analogically considered. Apparently, Frame is no more conscious of this than is Van Til. This is not a minor mistake. It is absolutely fatal to the Vantillian system… Van Til’s system goes down the drain… God Himself, according to Van Til, contradicts Van Til and says finite knowledge may be true knowledge.”

– Classical Apologetics, 315.

“We detect the subtle fallacy Van Til introduces, namely the fallacy of ambiguity…Van Til’s ambiguous treatment of circular reasoning is misleading.”

– Classical Apologetics, 323.

“Presuppositionalism tends to avoid all the problems by a simple arbitrary presupposition of God.”

– Classical Apologetics, 326

“Instead of being a ‘glorious circle’ [presuppositionalism] leads inevitably to anti-intellectualism and ultimate fideism even in the most ‘rational’ presuppositionalists.”

– Classical Apologetics, 338.

“The Emperor of the Land of Presuppositionalism where Van Til, Frame, Clark, Henry, and others live, has no clothes. Van Til is embarrassed. Frame is more embarrassed and is always trying to pin something on the Emperor’s bare skin. Clark does not blush so easily, and Henry doesn’t notice the nakedness. Classical apologetics, with its horror of circularity, is the little child who embarrasses everybody by pointing out the obvious.”

– Classical Apologetics, 338.