I just caught this over at Triablogue: TANG & TAG

In the midst of the post, we read Interlocuter’s question to Steve:

“Further, and I don’t mean to but you in a difficult spot with the other contributors and supporters here, how do you feel about people like Paul Manata and Peter Pike/Calvindude who seem to think that TAG is a done deal? It seems they believe this pretty dogmatically. You, as I understand it, are a close personal friend of John Frame, the living guru of presuppositionalism. Do you believe the view of TAG that you have presented here is more representative of his views or do you think Manata and Pike are closer?”

Steve’s response re: my position (read the rest of it on the T-blogue too; it’s good stuff) was:

I can’t speak for Peter Pike. However, Peter isn’t dealing with some ideal, hypothetical opponent.

Rather, he’s dealing with real opponents like Daniel Morgan and John Loftus.

We can only debate the people who debate us, and not some Olympian abstraction.

And, from what I’ve read of him, Peter Pike doesn’t have any great difficulty getting the better of the argument.

So even assuming, for the sake of argument, that he’s pretty dogmatic about the sufficiency of TAG, it’s not as if his opponents have given him much occasion to doubt his dogmatism. If anything, prolonged exposure to the general level of the opposition simply confirms his operating assumptions. But he will have to speak for himself–and he’s more than welcome to do so.

I’ve actually been meaning to put something on this for a while, so I guess now’s as good a time as any to post on it.  I’ll put it here on my blog too so no one can accuse the response of being posted (as to misrepresent my position) by one of the crazy “anonymous” folks who like to troll and yawn a lot.

A little biography.  My first exposure to philosophy came during my Medieval History class when the prof actually made us read such works as Machiavelli and Descartes.  I instantly fell in love with philosophy and began to devour as many works as I could get my hands on.  The first real hints of the Presuppositional argumentation that I picked up actually came when I read Pascal’s Penseès.  I liked them so much, you can see I have a category entitled Penseès for my blog posts too (where I put short, not fully developed, but interesting stuff).

Pascal meshed a great deal with my theological background; or rather, a specific portion of my theological background, which dealt with the spiritual incapacity of the unregenerate man.  As such, before I ever heard of Van Til or Bahnsen, I was already a presuppositionalist in all but name.

For a time, I ran a Calvinist e-mail list, and it was only there that someone first introduced the ideas of Presuppositionalism.  I read them and thought, “That’s pretty much what I already believe” but of course no one on the list challenged any of it as we were all Calvinists.  So I just continued on my lovely little way without bothering to get deeper into it or anything.

It was only after debating atheists that I even began to dwell on the subject, and then it was mostly from a defensive position.  Even now, the only book that I’ve ever read that gave a positive presentation of Presuppositionalism as the focus was Bahnsen’s Always Ready.  In point of fact, that’s the only book by Bahnsen that I’ve read.  The only Van Til that I’ve read, aside from a few articles here and there, was the introduction he wrote to B. B. Warfield’s work on the inspiration of Scripture (which is packed away or I’d get the exact title).  I own two Frame books–The Doctrine of God which I have not yet begun to read (I’m currently going through Calvin’s Institutes), and No Other God which I have read but which deals with Open Theism, not Presuppositionalism.

In any case, I really didn’t even get all that much into Presuppositionalism until I started conversing with Dawson Bethrick on my old website.  And then, it was more of a reaction to Dawson’s Randianism than anything else.  He’d write something and I’d disagree with it and state my reasons why, etc.  My arguments fit the Presuppositionalist viewpoint (the reason I knew that was because others told me that, not because I was going out of my way to find out what Presuppositionalism was).

So my views on Presuppositionalism are, in a nutshell, the result of my Calvinistic beliefs as they’ve been run through debates with atheists for the last five years or so.  Those Presuppositional writings that I’ve read since I realized I was a Presuppositionalis I have agreed with (mostly).  Frankly, I’ve always found it rather interesting that my ideas have “evolved” through debate to be generally the same as other Presuppositionalists when I have not submerged myself in their writings at all.  It would be one thing if I was a Van Tillian sychophant; but I can’t claim that.  Indeed, I actually like to read, and agree to a large extent with, Gordon Clark’s books too! (Those who are in the “know” will understand the utter horror…)

In any case, to respond to the question on TAG (i.e. “how do you feel about people like Paul Manata and Peter Pike/Calvindude who seem to think that TAG is a done deal? It seems they believe this pretty dogmatically”).  I don’t hold to TAG “dogmatically” at all.  I actually learned what TANG was before I learned what TAG was.  

But here’s what I do know.  I know that atheism is not a negative worldview.  It doesn’t only deny.  In denying the existence of God, atheism is asserting positive truths that atheists must defend.  Atheists love to pretend they have a corner on logic, rationality, and reason.  Religious people are Fundamentalist whackos, too stupid to waste giving the time of day to.  Yet atheists hold to such things as logic, rationality, reason, and morality without ever expressing a reason for why they do so.

Indeed, as my recent discussions show, atheists have to resort to a just-so story: “Logic is true just because” which is another way of saying, “I have faith that logic is true.”  It’s even worse with morality.

My only objective when I debate atheists is to point out that they are inconsistent with their worldview.  If we accept the ramifications of the atheist worldview, we are left with a worldview that guts itself.  I think the surest proof of this is that thus far, in the ten years I’ve been on-line through my various websites, I’ve never found an atheist who even bothers to try to give a metaphysical, epistemological, and moral grounding for his or her views that actually stands up to the Presuppositional position.

As I’ve stated before many times, why should I give up a worldview that explains everything and that I have right now just because someone promises that at some point in the future there might be another worldview, different from mine, that also can explain all these things.  Why give up $100 in your pocket for the promise that someday you might get $100?  It’s all risk, no reward.

And that, ultimately, is the key.  The atheist is going to have to show me the value of his worldview if he is going to convince me to change to it.  Even if he manages to tear down Christianity, all he does is set us all at an equal field.  I would not jump to his atheism unless he could offer a positive reason for his worldview.

As it is, I have no reason to think he will ever tear down the theistic worldview in the first place.  Thus far, the most “devastating” critiques have been less than underwhelming.  Until a lot changes, I’m going to keep to my current views.  So far, they’re working just fine.