I’ve been reading through Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion again since I have no TV yet at my new place, and the computer games I’ve gotten have been played out :-) But I consider this a good thing, as Calvin is one who really makes me think more.
In any case, the past three or four days I’ve read through the entirety of Book One of the Institutes. For those who are not familiar with it, Book One is the introduction of the knowledge of God. Calvin spends a little time on the nature of man as he was created (he delves into how man has fallen in Book Two), but only as a means of determining who the Creator is. And naturally, the first way to know who the Creator is is to know Scripture.
Thus, Book One unfolds in such a manner to give us a starting point for all reality, and everything that follows in the rest of the Institutes are predicated on this begining. In short, the assumption of the truthfulness of Scripture is the source of all knowledge, first of God and secondly of His creation.
And some atheists argue that presuppositionalism is a new thing invented by Van Til :-)
In any case, it is important for us to recognize that all arguments must begin at a starting point. This starting point must be completely basic. That is, it cannot have “proof” for it, or else it would not be the starting point; instead, the existence of the starting point is necessary. Since these starting points are not proven (indeed, they are the means by which all else is proven and thus cannot prove themselves), they are taken by faith. This is true even if the starting point is secular, for its truthfulness must be asserted by faith rather than proven.
Another way to look at it is this: Suppose we want a method of proof. How do we prove the method of proof is right? If we use the method to prove it, we are engaged in circular reasoning. If we use some other method to prove it, that other method takes precedence over the secondary method. This is certainly not a problem if one is not concerned with the ultimate issues; but when one wants to determine the basic core truth of reality, one cannot rely on a method proven by a more basic method.
Thus, we must reach the point of the most basic axioms in any argument.
Now there are some important things to consider here.
First, the starting presuppositions of a system define the terms used in that system. Therefore, when we coin a term used in the arguments of a system, that term’s meaning is restricted to its usage within the system. That term cannot be used in a second system that does not have the same presuppositions because its meaning will be different.
This is why presuppositionalists often argue with atheists over morality. Morals have a certain meaning within the presuppositions of Christianity. They likewise have a certain meaning within the presuppositions of atheism. One cannot use the term “Moral” as defined by the atheist to critique the Christian position. Likewise, one cannot use the term “Moral” as defined by the Christian position to critique the atheist position. Instead, both terms must be used consistently within their own system; otherwise we engage in ambiguity and come to false conclusions.
Secondly, this demonstrates for us the importance of the internal critique method of evalutating systems of belief. If a term used within one’s system must rely on the definitions from another’s system, then one’s system is incomplete. Those systems that do not rely on outside definitions are internally consistent.
Now, for a specific example, let us again look at the idea of morality. Within the Christian system of belief, morals exist. I personally hold to a form of the Divine Command Theory: things are moral because God commands them, based on His nature. Therefore, I can make an argument that a specific action is moral or immoral because of God’s specific commands.
A common atheist objection has been: “Christians only do moral things because God commands them to; atheists do moral things because they are the moral thing to do!” But here we see first that the atheist is engaged in ambiguity of the terms: what is moral for a Christian is defined differently than what is moral for an atheist, and thus the above is not an accurate comparison. Secondly, however, we see that the atheist must borrow from the Christian worldview in order to make his point. For there is no “moral thing to do” in the atheist worldview where morality is nothing more than personal preference or empathy. In order to make the statement correct, one would have to say: “A Christian does the Christian moral thing because God commands Him to; an atheist does the atheistically moral thing to do because he prefers to do it rather than to not do it.”
Such does not have the same impact as when it was previously stated, wherein the atheist seeks to claim the same kind of moral certainty that the Christian has. The atheist does not have the same morality as a Christian, for his morality is built upon different presuppositional standards.
Yet the atheist, unconscious as it may be, emotionally prefers the moral certainty of the Christian system. This is why he tries to link his atheistic morality to Christian moral standards, all the while refusing to accept the necessary presuppositions that ground those moral standards. As such, we see that the atheist is stuck borrowing precepts from the Christian worldview in order to prop up his own worldview, thus demonstrating that the atheistic worldview is incomplete and insufficient as a description of reality.
The Christian worldview, on the other hand, does not suffer from that fate, for it never relies on having to define our terms based on the atheist’s worldview (or any other worldview). It, therefore, is internally consistent.
Now it is certainly true that an atheist could argue that there might be other internally consistent worldview out there, but he cannot argue that his atheism is one of them. And until he comes up with such a consistent worldview, I see no reason to jettison mine.
